


Mrs R. J. Tonks

by Carnivalgirl24



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Female Remus Lupin, Female Sirius Black, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Genderbending, Genderswap, Male Nymphadora Tonks, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), POV Remus Lupin, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Werewolf Culture, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carnivalgirl24/pseuds/Carnivalgirl24
Summary: So often melancholy and lonely, she was first amused, then impressed, then seriously smitten by the young wizard.The story of Remus and Tonks, with genders reversed. Starts in OotP era but will continue to DH.





	1. Amused

**Author's Note:**

> AU: The only characters in this story with swapped genders are Remus, Tonks, the other three Marauders, and, by default, Lily. I recognise I could have left the other three Marauders as they were, but I thought that their sharing a dormitory growing up would have had a big influence on how close they became, and so on their friendship and the overall plot of the series. Sirius's name was very difficult to feminise without changing it completely (and given how meaningful it is, I was keen to avoid that), and so she is Siri.
> 
> There is mild blood and gore in this chapter, from an accident rather than violence.

'You understood, Mrs…'

'Ms.' Immediately she wished she'd said 'Professor'.

'Ms Lupin,' the loan shark, Marsham, corrected, rolling his eyes slightly. His features were naturally rounded and soft, which made the intimidating expressions in them all the more forced. She thought it somehow poetic that he contrasted to goblins physically as well as ethically. Goblins, as a rule, loved money too much to play blood sports with it.

'You understood that contract you signed. It said very clearly what our interest rates were, and our terms of repayment.'

She had indeed read the contract. It had at least been printed even if the advertisement to receive had not; another witch at the library (Book and Stay Out of the Cold Club) had told her that if you went to a certain Muggle souvenir shop off Oxford Street at 6pm exactly on a Tuesday and asked for a Prince Charles snowglobe, you could get a loan, quick and generous as a portion of chips. The catch in the offer was predictable and she'd been damned reckless to accept it, but she'd been three months behind on rent. The streets were not an option; if she could not keep a room, the Ministry would find one for her, and would not trouble her to leave it ever again.

'Yes, of course. I was making repayments in accordance with those terms.'

'You were slow, Ms Lupin. You have to understand that's highly inconvenient for us. It makes it much more difficult for us to continue providing our valuable services to wizards and witches down on their luck such as yourself. That's why we were obliged to ask Lightning to pay you a visit.'

'Yes. That's why I'm here.'

She clenched her fists to steady them, resisting the urge to wipe her forehead of sweat. There was no ventilation in the place - it was built off the souvenir shop's storage cupboard and the lights from the various flashing trinkets were casting disorienting shadows on the wall. Experience had taught her these situations could escalate in moments.

'Lightning is a werewolf, Ms Lupin.' Marsham said the word with the same relish as some used for their personal favourite hexes. 'I'm going to put this simply. The full moon is in two days. If we don't see all of the money by then, we'll send him round again.'

'Yes, we discussed that,' she said. 'I told him he'd be very welcome.'

Marsham scoffed. 'You're telling me you're not afraid of werewolves?'

'Not as such. I am also a werewolf, Mr Marsham.'

His soft face lost its precarious scary expression, and loosened completely in shock. She smiled.

'Lightning and I had a long conversation. Becoming a goon has never really been an option for me,' She gestured down at herself - she was scrawny as a scarecrow, and about as threatening - 'but I know how it is. I let him know of some places people like us can get more…honourable work. Hopefully you won't see him again.'

Finally out of his state of shock, Marsham reached for his wand. 'You half-breed bitch, you can't -'

'And you won't see me, either.' She opened her old teacher's briefcase and pulled out a bag of Galleons, dropping it on the desk with a flourish of her fingers. 'Please accept my loan, with interest.'

 

This was indeed how it was. Rema Lupin could say, with just a shadow of grief, that getting bitten by a werewolf as a little girl had let her learn early on that life and time were not her own. Sometimes, it took only a few seconds for everything to change beyond recognition. Then as she got older she began to see how many different ways this could happen. A few weeks before, on a temperate afternoon, she had been startled at home by a Grim-like beast at her window. The beast was her closest friend, Siri Black, and she was there to pass on a message from Dumbledore. Voldemort had returned to full strength. He had already attacked Harry.

'So the war is waiting for you, if you want back in,' she'd said, never one to mince words.

'Is it the war or the Second War now?' Rema had said.

'That's probably up for debate,' Siri had replied, trying and failing to get comfortable in Rema's one wicker chair. 'But if you ask me, it's still the same one. We just had a hiatus.'

Rema realised in that moment that she felt just like she had in the Shack, the last time she'd seen Siri and the past had returned to the present; she had not even said 'yes', not even needed to think about coming back to it all. She was not remotely afraid.

Neither was Siri. 'This chair is annoying,' she'd said after a pause, finally settling on a semi-horizontal posture.

'It was here when I got here. I can't afford a new one.'

'No work?'

'…dribs and drabs,' Rema had said. In light of the news about Voldemort it did not seem worth bringing up. 'There's not much left after the bills.'

'Well, there'll be a room for you at the new headquarters. I've chosen it specially. It's got a fireplace and bookshelves, and the paintings are of fruit rather than bloodthirsty relatives. And I won't charge rent.'

'You…what?'

'The Order needs a sizeable headquarters, and as luck would have it I've inherited a sizeable house.' Siri had tried to keep up the light tone, but something fell away as she continued. 'Please move in, Moony. You'd be the only thing stopping me from going insane.'

Rema reached out a hand and placed it gently on Siri's arm. 'I'll move in tonight.'

Siri smiled, relief beautifying her lovely features. 'Not tonight. It's not safe yet, but it won't be long. Would it be OK if I stayed here?'

'Of course,' Rema said. 'Though I can't offer you paintings and a fireplace, I'm afraid.'

Siri turned towards the far side of the room, where the fireplace had once been. 'I wasn't going to ask, but why is there a piece of wood there? I can't imagine the wolf wrecked it.'

'Oh, it was…' Rema couldn't think of a convincing lie; she was clearly out of practice. '…borrowed.'

'I see,' Siri said instantly. 'How much do you owe? And when do you need the money by?'

As the first occupants of the new Order headquarters, it was Siri and Rema's role to prepare the house to receive Order members and to prepare Order members, in turn, for the task ahead of them all. Their reconciliations with their old allies, like Arabella Figg, Mad-Eye Moody and Emmeline Vance were gratifying and productive, but also imbued with that subtle but ever-present sensation that they were backing towards a cliff-edge over hell.

Grimmauld Place was also a hideous place barely worthy of the term 'home', made worse by the new associations with the war and the old associations of a family who had wounded Siri for life. And yet moving in there, Rema immediately had the closest thing to a home she'd had in a year, and the closest thing to family she'd had in fourteen years. When she returned home in the late afternoon after handing in her debts, she felt tired, but more alive than she had in a long time.

She found Siri in the kitchen and gave her a huge smile.

'It's done,' she said. 'The threats stopped pretty quickly once the money was on the table.'

Siri's face sank in a beautiful portrait of pity. 'It sounds awful. You must be shaken up.'

'I'm fine. Believe me, I've seen worse.'

'Of course, of course, but even so. It's time you had a nice sit down. I'll get you a cup of tea. How about a biscuit?'

Once when they were younger Siri had wondered aloud what kind of sad person came up with the phrase "nice sit down", and Rema could not imagine she'd learned to understand it in the years that had followed.

'Are you up to something?'

Siri smiled. 'I can see how you might think that, but no. I just thought it's probably been a hard day for you, not to mention it's the full moon in a couple of days. Go and sit down in the living room.'

'Would it be alright if I went to my room? I'm quite tired.'

'Oh! But I've just brought down your blankets. Please, it'll be cosy.'

It was a heatwave and they were in a house built for Victorian winters; the mention of 'cosy' made Rema feel worse, not better. But she didn't have the energy to argue against whatever Siri was up to. She proceeded to the living room and sank in her favourite chair, a wingback chair with firm green upholstery and a beautiful brocade. Siri brought in the tea and took a seat opposite her.

'Isn't this nice?' she said. Rema thanked her, and sat back and closed her eyes.

However, the next moment she opened them again, as there were odd noises coming from the chimney flue. She froze in her seat to listen. They were irregular, soft sounds, getting progressively further away, as if something were going up the chimney, something wide enough to scrape the sides as it went. Then there was a jolt, like something had struck the inner wall.

'Siri, is there…'

'Just the wind,' Siri said, drawing her tea to her lips.

Something rattled down the flue, and out of the fireplace rolled the biscuit tin, with a large dent in its side, leaving a trail of soot. Rema stared at it.

'How on Earth -' she began, but didn't finish the sentence, as a series of jolts sounded from the wall and a large black shape hurtled clear out of the fireplace, collided with the rug, and skidded across the floor between of them.

Rema yelped and out of her chair. She grappled for her wand and thrust it at the shape on the floor.

'Siri! Be -'

In another heartbeat she realised Siri was laughing loudly, and the thing on the floor was a person, an athletic young man covered from head to toe in old soot, holding up his hands. They were both empty.

'Wotcher,' he said. 'Easy now.'

She put her wand away hastily. 'Very sorry. Nobody told me you were here.'

'This is my cousin,' Siri said, still laughing, 'Nymphidius Tonks.'

'I prefer just Tonks,' he said, holding a hand first out in front of him. He had an youthful, impish face, with features that looked set for constant smiling and laughing. His hair, where it wasn't covered in soot, was bright blue.

'Rema Lupin, pleased to meet you,' she said, grasping his hand briefly. 'May I ask what has thrown you out of the chimney?'

'An Occamy,' he said, hauling himself up. 'I tried to approach it with a container and some food. I thought it must not get much food in there…'

'Oh, it'll be eating off the roof,' Rema said. 'Moths and such.'

'Yeah, I realise that now,' he said, with a quick nod. 'Anyway, it wasn't tempted to say the least. I had to let go and drop to avoid being pecked in the eyes.'

'Did you make a lot of noise as you went up there?'

'He sure did,' Siri filled in.

'Unfortunately, asking me to do something silently is usually a recipe for disaster,' Tonks said with a self-deprecating chuckle. Rema glared over his shoulder at Siri, who raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes in a 'What?' expression.

'Maybe we could work with that,' she said. 'Noise panics Occamys. On this occasion it was able to scare you off, but if you do it a second time it may retreat.'

'So if one of us waits at the top end, we could -' He mimed clamping down a lid.

'Exactly. Can you make even more noise than before?'

'I expect so,' he said, and grinned.

Even in the late afternoon, it was so scorching on the roof that Rema could feel the tiles burning through the worn soles of her shoes. The biscuit tin in her hands was also getting uncomfortably hot. Nonetheless, her pulse was racing in her head, and she could not tell if was due to her rising temperature or the exhilaration of an adventure. She took a quick glance down the chimney. A small patch of sunlight highlighted unmistakeable vivid green-and blue scales. Occamies rarely came near humans and both species were better off that way, but she couldn't help feeling dazzled to be so close. If she only had a suitable tank…there wasn't time to think about that. She held the container over the chimney pipe, and waited to hear Tonks.

Silence continued. The sun on the roof was so heavy to endure it was difficult to tell how much time was really passing. The Occamy was also taking up such a lot of space in the chimney that any sound from Tonks would likely be muffled. Rema leant her head against the tin.

It seemed about another minute passed. Her mind wandered back to the Occamy's beautiful scales, and it occurred to her that she had't seen any feathers, so there was no way of telling which way up the creature was. Being mostly snake, it could fill the space however it wanted. It could be facing Tonks.

At that moment she heard a soft song echoing against the walls of the tin. 'Chim-chim-e-nee, chim-chim-e-nee, chim, chim…'

This was interrupted by a wild, spluttering squawk, so loud she automatically reeled back for a moment. The chimney shook as the panicked Occamy circled the narrow space. Clamping the tin down with her hands, she pressed her ear to the chimney again and heard the distinct sound of a man crying out in pain. _Oh, Merlin, please not his eyes_ , she thought.

The vibrations got stronger. It was moving upwards just as she had predicted. She closed her eyes and focused on the sound, and as soon as she felt it was close she hovered the tin over the chimney. The Occamy shot up, and as soon as she felt it hit the bottom, she tipped it downwards and let the creature pour itself into the space. She slammed the lid down.

'There's a good Occamy,' she said, and used her wand to puncture holes in the side of the tin and fix down the lid. 'I'll find you a better home. But I have to check on my friend.'

 

She flew down to the roof as quickly as she could, the tin under her arm, and sprinted into the living room. Siri had an arm around Tonks, who was on his knees, hands over his face, but when he heard her arrive he looked up at her with two perfectly intact eyes.

'Take a look, you're better at this sort of thing than I am,' Siri said, shuffling back. Rema knelt in front of Tonks, who moved his hands away tentatively.

'Oh, Tonks, your poor nose.' There was so much blood bubbling out of the injury to his face that it took Rema a second to evaluate the damage. The creature's beak was sharp but roughly wielded, and had left a messy wound.

Tonks tilted his head back to avoid swallowing blood. 'Idds a wride-off, iddn't it?' he quipped. 'You dink I deed a dew one?'

'Don't worry,' she said, taking out her wand with one hand and supporting his head with the other. 'We can fix this.'

'I god it,' he said, and gestured for his own wand. She found it on the floor and handed it to him, and he touched it to his nose. 'Epidkey.'

She was prepared to try 'Episkey' with her own unimpeded voice, but his magic was apparently strong enough for his intentions to carry through. The blood shrank back to the wound and dried, and the splintered bone glided back into place. He brushed his fingertips across it.

'Still not right,' he said with mild dissatisfaction, like he was icing a cake. He then closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, and without a word of incantation a round, squat pig's snout appeared where his nose had been.

Her face must have shown her astonishment, as he gave her a (thankfully human) grin. 'Doesn't suit me?' He gave a parting oink and scrunched up his face again. Again without a word his nose - a short little button nose - appeared brand new.

It finally clicked in Rema's mind what she was seeing. 'You're a Metamorphmagus.'

'Yup.'

'My God, I'd only heard of Metamorphmagi in books. There's only a handful in the entire world….sorry, I'm talking at you like a specimen, that's incredibly rude.'

He shrugged. 'You're alright. Go on, ask me anything.'

Siri, sensing the conversation was about to get scientific, picked up the tin containing the Occamy and left the room, presumably to find it something to eat before they released it. Tonks hopped into her vacated armchair and Rema sat opposite him.

'Would it be correct to say that the reason most of your - would you call them transformations?'

'Changes.'

'Most of your changes are in your face and hair because the tissue is more pliable?'

'That's right.' He demonstrated one ear, which had piercings all down the helix. 'I did these myself, and my hair. They're easiest.'

'So it's either not possible or a lot more effort to transform, say, your limbs, because they're so much more…robust?'

'It's more effort, yeah. I can change the size and shape of them - I used to morph into teachers when I was at school - but I can't change them to animal shapes like I can with my nose. I've tried.'

'But they don't hurt at all?'

'No. So they're very different to yours, in that respect.'

'…Mine?' She put a hand to the side of her face, as if she could still conceal the truth. She had not realised he knew; he hadn't said a thing about it.

'You're a werewolf, right?' he said. 'I'm sorry - I heard about you when you were at Hogwarts a couple of years ago, and Siri mentioned you were living here.'

'Oh. Well, yes. Werewolf transformations are…extremely painful.'

He grimaced sympathetically. 'That sucks.'

For some reason this made her laugh, in a nice, warming way. 'It does.'

He leant his chin on his hand. 'So what else do you have going on, like, besides the werewolf thing?'

She was so used to being The Werewolf from the instant anyone knew that it took her a few seconds to think how to describe who she was apart from that.

'I…when I have disposable income, I spend it on books. I have a particular interest in magical creatures. I would've loved to study that Occamy, but I think it is better off returned to the wild as soon as possible.'

Tonks laughed and put a hand over his nose. 'Probably. You'll have fun in this place, then. Siri said it's riddled with Doxies and Boggarts. Are Boggarts classed as creatures?'

'They're classed as Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions. Like poltergeists.'

'Oh, right. Cool,' he said, with an even sort of smile.

'I…also used to play the saxophone.'

She had no idea why she'd said that of all things. She hadn't even owned a saxophone since she finished school. It just felt awkward to lose his interest so quickly.

' _Awesome_ ,' he said. 'I don't really have the hand-eye coordination for an instrument. I would've liked to try the drums, but my mum would never have put up with it in the house.'

They continued in this vein for a while - Rema didn't track how long but it must have been more than an hour - and after a pause his gaze returned to the chimney.

'I did tell Siri I'd finish cleaning it.'

'I also told her I would make dinner tonight. Would you like to stay?'

'Sure, thank you. That gives me a deadline.'

He returned to work, and Siri returned with fresh tea, minus the Occamy. Somehow Rema had forgotten she'd been responsible for the whole debacle, and almost cost her young cousin his nose. All in a day.

'Where's the Occamy?' Rema asked her.

'In the cellar for now. I found a few spiders for it. Do you want to release it tonight or tomorrow?'

'Let's say tomorrow. I'll get on with dinner.'

Tonks, somewhere in the flue, had resumed his song. 'Chim-chim-e-nee, chim-chim-e-nee, chim chim cheeree, a sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be.'

'What is that you're singing?' Siri shouted at the wall.

'Traditional working song,' he called back. 'Don't suppose your side of the family would understand that kind of thing.'

'I know what a working song is,' Siri said awkwardly, and took a large gulp of tea.

Rema had to hold back a smirk. There were not many things she and Petra had been able to do that were guaranteed to wind Siri and Jane up at school, but picking on their aristocratic backgrounds had been one of them.

'Chim-chim-e-nee, chim-chim-e-nee, chim chim cheroo, gold luck will rub off when I shakes hands with you.'

She had been four when her mother had taken her to see that film. It was one of the only memories she had of the time before the bite.

'Or blow me a kiss, and that's lucky too!'

Whereas Tonks would not even have been born in 1964. _God, I'm so old_ , Rema thought, but put this aside immediately.

 

That night, once Tonks had gone home and she and Siri were heading for bed, Rema finally asked her why he'd been there.

'He's not entitled to the house as well, is he?'

'Oh no, that's not why he's here. You remember Mad-Eye mentioned he had a bright young protegé, newly trained?'

'Yes?'

'You just met him.'

'Oh.'

Her eyes dropped to their night candles. The small flames seemed helpless in a house of looming ceilings and sharp, light-blocking angles. Siri seemed to sense the mood as well, and tightened her lips, maintaining a silence.

Rema Lupin was not afraid of the war, but that was because she knew it. When she first met it, at Tonks's age, she had been its plaything to tear apart. And she had not been the brightest recruit, nor the one it hurt the most.

She would have to look out for young Tonks.


	2. Impressed (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some allusions to domestic violence and suicide in this chapter.
> 
> 'Rowan' as in 'Jane and Rowan' is of course Lily. I thought if the Evanses had had boys, they might still have kept up the plant theme.

Shenanigans had been Rema Lupin's most reliable way of bonding with others since her school days, and after the Occamy incident she and Nymphidius Tonks were instant friends. By July, when the Order was fully operational, she already felt more comfortable in his company than she did with many people she had known for years.

However, she had never been able to make friends the way other people did, growing around each other like plants in a garden. She had to manufacture it, it had stages, some she actively controlled and others that were more unconscious. The only person who'd got through them all who was still alive today was Siri. After twelve years apart, they could and did talk for hours every day, usually in the kitchen where they could have constant refills of tea, or occasionally Firewhiskey. A prime example of the strength of their friendship was that Siri was the only person who could goad Rema into rants, even when they were supposed to be preparing for an Order meeting.

'This law says that "in the interest of protecting wizard safety", werewolves can only work under "total supervision".' Rema's nails picked at the stitches in the cuff of her sleeve - she had had these robes since she was seventeen, and the fact she still needed them made them easy targets for her anger. 'There are very few jobs where someone is available to watch you, and only you, for the entire time that you're there, and even fewer where they would want to.'

'Prison inmate is one,' Siri said, with a grim smile.

'If you want to stay alive and above the law in this society - even if just out of spite - most of the time the only choice you've got is one of Umbridge's Programme jobs where you… clean graffiti, or recycle litter, or something, and they give you a couple of Sickles at the end of the day. Impossible to live on. I think my parents gave me more money to buy ice cream as a child.'

'The old prison system was like that, before the Dementors,' Siri said. Her hand rubbed her neck where her ID number was tattooed, and her voice rose, as if something was waiting to drown her out. 'Hard labour if you were strong enough. Sewing or something if not. Pitiful jobs for pitiful money. The theory was you learned to be a good citizen, but really, of course, it was organised subjugation.'

'That's the long-term plan!' Rema exclaimed. She so rarely raised her voice that it felt odd even as she chose to do it, but Siri's company and the privacy of the kitchen emboldened her. 'That's the long-term plan, it's transparent! And do you know what the hardest thing is?'

Siri, whose eyes had been searching around the room as they often did when her mind turned back to prison, held up a hand to interrupt her, and gestured to the doorway. Tonks was standing there. His hair was a rich dark brown today, and looked soft even with the spikes he had styled into it. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been there, or what he'd thought of the conversation.

'Sorry,' he said, 'I know the meeting's not for another hour, but I finished work and I thought I would come early and hang out for a bit.'

'You're a Ministry insider,' Siri said, turning around to him, arms folded over the back of her chair. 'Do you think that's the plan for werewolves? Habituate them to doing whatever the government graciously permits them to do?'

'Yeah,' he said, without hesitation or breaking eye contact. His face so often had shadows across it from his smiles, laughter and infinite funny faces, that the sight of it so still and pale did more to express his feelings than the actual frown in his mouth. 'I think that's it to the letter. Please don't assume no one has noticed. We have, and…we're not looking away.'

It was the first time Rema had heard anything so empathetic from anyone working at the Ministry, even when she was a child and still provoked pity in the various officials her family interacted with. It was too much to absorb. She closed her hands in her lap, and tried to compose herself into the person she wanted to be in front of Tonks. Level-headed, unafraid.

'It's good to see you, Tonks. We should go over tonight's agenda.'

Days later, she saw him de-gnoming the garden with Ginny Weasley. Silhouetted against the heatwave's white light, he looked like a sportsman in a field, even if the yellow of the plant material in Grimmauld Place's little garden was not the golden glow of new wheat but early putrefaction. When he threw a gnome, it soared so high and fast that it seemed to be spiralling into the sun.

'You're good,' Ginny said.

'I'm pretending they're Dolores Umbridge.'

'Who's that?'

'Ministry bigwig. Nasty piece of work. Hopefully you'll never come across her.'

It was very pleasurable to imagine Umbridge's pink cardigans crisping in the fire of a midday sun. Nonetheless Rema had to wonder, as she watched, what Tonks would have said if she'd finished what she was going to tell Siri.

_The hardest thing is, it's all my fault._

Tonks, in his turn, seemed to be more honest, or at least more chatty with her than he was around a lot of other Order members, even after so much time had passed that the fact she was one of the first people he met should no longer have made a difference. They both volunteered to be part of the Advance Guard to escort Harry to Grimmauld Place, a mission which dazzled him.

'Is it weird that I'm nervous about meeting Harry Potter? I'm pretty sure I'm going to say something stupid like "Oh my GAWD, can I see your scar?"'

'He'll go with it,' Rema said. 'The first time I met him, recently I mean, I was asleep, and somehow I still made a good impression.'

That September first had been a long time ago, longer than Rema herself realised. That night when they picked him up, she saw he had become a young man; there was stubble on his cheeks, and his clothes, presumably bought a summer or two before, were now too short on him. On Siri's instructions he had not left the house for days, and his green eyes looked dull and sad behind his lopsided glasses.

Tonks, glowing with excitement, said that Harry "looked just like he thought he would", disowned his own first name (again), changed his hair to pink in Harry's mirror, and broke one of Harry's aunt and uncle's twee decorative plates.

'Have I made an idiot of myself?' he asked Rema under his breath, as they carried Harry's trunk between them into the house.

'You couldn't have done better,' she replied. 'You put him at ease.'

He had - temporarily. The shouting upstairs that same night made it painfully obvious there was something in Harry that simple tomfoolery would not pacify. At Grimmauld Place he was at least safe and among people who loved him, though that did create its own set of problems. Within days of his arrival, Siri and Molly Weasley crossed wands over who knew what was best for him. Just as Siri was the only person who could goad Rema into righteous anger, Rema was the only person who could talk – or order – Siri down from it. Out of her and Molly, they both had Harry's love, but Siri had Harry's admiration. If she couldn't keep a level head, he wouldn't either.

Siri did not argue with this as it happened, but turned on her oldest friend the moment they were alone together.

'What did she mean, "Who else has he got?" How could she say that in front of me? In front of you? When we've known him since he was born?'

 _Have we?_  Rema thought. The twelve years of separation both of them had from Harry was literally his lifetime. There was so much they still didn't know about his life and what he'd endured, and now his needs were changing with every passing day.

'You should cut her some slack. Mothering Harry is the best way she knows how to help.'

'And?' Siri narrowed her eyes. 'He's too old to be coddled. He's not waiting to fight, he's already fighting. He's seen worse than a lot of the people who were around the table tonight.'

'Yes,' Rema said, keeping her voice low, 'and that is exactly why we can't let him join us. He needs space. He needs a chance to grow up.'

Weeks later, the Weasleys invited everyone in the Order to celebrate Ron and Hermione becoming the year's Gryffindor prefects. As a former teacher, prefect and best friend of Jane Potter, Rema could see the logic of Dumbledore's decision immediately. Prefect was a role best suited to students who not only loved the school, but also had the patience to serve its more humdrum needs. Jane, at fifteen, would have loved to represent Hogwarts in an international tournament the way Harry had, and would have excelled at it, but she would have keeled over and died of frustrated ennui at tidying the library after hours or administering the Hogwarts-Beauxbatons Quill Pal Club. Harry was a chip off the old block, and he had more than enough to think about beside those kinds of tasks. However, as a former teacher, prefect and best friend of Jane Potter, Rema could also see he was - awkwardly, reluctantly - a little upset. He pushed his food around his plate and only did the motions of paying attention to the conversations around him.

Then Tonks explained another reason certain students were never selected as prefects.

'My Head of House said I lacked certain abilities. Like the ability to behave myself.'

Rema recalled something Tonks had said about morphing into his teachers, and was distracted picturing what hilarious anarchy this must have been until she heard Siri say 'Lupin was the good girl, she got the badge'.

She blinked and turned back to Harry. 'Yes. I think Dumbledore might have hoped I could exercise some control over my best friends. I need scarcely say I failed dismally.'

Harry immediately perked up on hearing this, suddenly making eye contact with everyone and digging into his food with more gusto. You see now, Harry, she wanted to tell him, it's not really your thing.

Molly had volunteered to deal with a Boggart in a writing desk upstairs. The album on the record player, which had been about halfway when she left, was winding to an end. Even for someone who'd had little practice with Boggarts, this seemed a long time, and Rema looked around for Moody, to see if he could take a glance upstairs. He was poised on the edge of his seat, immobile apart from his eye. Siri was also staring at the ceiling, and as the room quietened a faint repetitive sound could be heard, like crying.

'It's winning,' Moody said, getting to his feet with surprising ease. He did not need to ask Siri and Rema to join him in heading upstairs.

Rema was the first in the room. Harry's corpse lay spread-eagled on the floor, but she couldn't panic when the living and breathing Harry was a glance away, hovering anxiously by a sobbing Molly.

Rema crossed the room to the Boggart one stride. It sensed its new target, and the corpse disappeared and transformed into the full moon.  _My! Mooning in public is outrageous_ , she thought, and said clearly 'Riddikulus!' The thing vanished.

It took a while, but between the four of them (Moody's silent, staring presence probably helped in some way) they managed to calm Molly down. Harry, no doubt just a little rattled by the sight of his own corpse, went to bed as soon as he sensed he was no longer needed.

'You know,' Siri said quietly, still looking around at every part of the room that had contained her real or phantom godson, 'Harry's death is my Boggart, too.'

'I'm sorry,' Molly said, 'for how I've spoken to you about Harry. I know you would have been there for him if you hadn't been in prison,' she said, glancing at Siri, 'and you hadn't been -'

Molly glanced at Rema, hesitating for just a second too long. She mouthed an 'Ah' that suggested her comment was getting away from her.

'Otherwise unable to take him,' Rema supplied for her.

'Yes,' Molly said, 'but we can all do our best for him now. Really, he needs all the family he can get.'

Harry's death was not Rema's Boggart; the moon still had too much sway over her. That, or maybe 'Fear of what would happen if Harry died in addition to the death itself' was too complicated for an apparition to represent visually. She left the room feeling strangely depressed - in the sense of being pushed down, as well as unhappy. The 'Congratulations Ron and Hermione' banner, the food covering the table and the pop music blaring from the record player all seemed to demand too much of her senses.

Tonks came up to her. There was a dash of cream on the side of his cheek from the trifle Molly had served.

'Is Molly alright?'

'She will be,' Rema said with a half-smile. 'The Boggart just got the better of her a bit.'

He nodded. 'Happens to the best of us.'

She sunk in the nearest armchair, and he perched on the side of it. His hair was long and red and this combined with his pale skin made it too easy to imagine it was one of the phantom corpses at her shoulder rather than a friend.

'Siri was telling me about some of your adventures at Hogwarts,' he said. 'She says you were the good girl, but…only compared to her and Jane, surely?'

'Thank you,' she replied, then belatedly processed what he'd actually said. 'Oh, I…yes, I was well-behaved, most of the time anyway.'

 _You're so sweet, Tonks_ , she thought.  _How long will you survive this?_

Harry and the other youngsters returned to school in September, but this was not enough for Tonks to lose interest in spending time at Grimmauld Place. Though he was on the frontline all day as an Auror, he never seemed to need a rest; indeed when he was not on a mission, he improvised one.

'Does this seem realistic to you, Rema?' One night after dinner, he unfurled a roll of parchment and transfigured his face to that of a forty-something woman with a short blonde haircut. '"Sir - I was very indignant to see this newspaper imply yet again that Albus Dumbledore is going senile (October 17). Even if that were the case, I dare say he could lose half of his brain to senility and still be more astute in his analysis than those calling him out of touch could ever hope to be. Sincerely, Margaret, Tunbridge Wells."'

She laughed. 'Very. But why are you disguising yourself as an angry Tunbridge Wells resident?'

'Because,' he said, scrunching up his nose and morphing his face back to its more typical masculine shape and pale tone. 'I can't call the Prophet out under my real name.'

'You really think getting into the letters section will make a difference?'

'Absolutely. You'd be surprised how many people trust random strangers over the press. We can use that to our advantage.'

'May I try one?' she asked. Tonks beamed, and pushed a roll across the table to her.

'"Sir -"' she read aloud after completing her letter, '"It is a shocking indictment of today's journalism to see discussion of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named relegated to a paragraph fifteen pages in (October 17). In the same edition three entire pages were dedicated solely to Fenella Featherstonehaugh's new posterior tattoo. Many of us ordinary wizarding folk are haunted by the memories of the war against You-Know-Who. Even the vaguest hint of a resurgence of his power is of far greater relevance to us than some popstar's arse decoration. I await your response. Elvendork, Abergavenny."'

Tonks burst out in a wild laugh and arranged his face into that of a sixty-something man, though with the same brown hair on top. 'Yes! Elvendork's the toupee type.'

They were compatible on all missions. In mid-October they went to Oxford to stake out an enemy storage facility they believed to be concealed in the walls of a bridge on the outskirts of the town. Though they had to spend fourteen hours of darkness in close company, with, as it turned out, no other stimulation but the slow-flowing river, no awkwardness arose between them. The gibbous moon was, to Rema, oppressively bright even when reflected in the water, and she struggled to ignore the aches and pains that always preceded her transformations, so she took a moment to observe Tonks when he was unaware. There were some features of his that he never changed - his eyes that shone like crystals in the dark, his naturally upturned lips, his thick arms that were always hugged tightly by his sleeves. Observing these things about him somehow made her feel especially safe and at ease even in the midst of danger; it was a simpler certainty than despair.

Rema's personal mission for the Order, tracking down werewolf packs across the country, continued apace. On the most desolate days, when she made her excuses to leave without admitting she was going back to wizards, and guilt and self-disgust cleaved like mud to her insides, the sight of Tonks around the kitchen table with Siri was an instant relief. When she was home in the afternoons, she found herself watching the clock tick past six, as if she could help it to bring Tonks in after work.

But he missed the dinner they had at Halloween for Jane and Rowan, and did not appear again until past Bonfire Night. For the next two months he came less than once a week, and when he did, he took a handful of the most recent batch of baked goods from Molly, bantered with Siri about the headlines in the Prophet, and then left again with little more to say than 'work to do'. When Christmas came around and the Weasleys and Harry joined them at Grimmauld Place, Rema found out she had missed him yet again.

'He escorted us to Mungo's the first time we went to see Dad,' Ginny said, 'but I think he's gone back up north to his family now.'

'He hasn't,' Siri said. 'He's working. He said the other Aurors have kids and families and got priority for leave, so he got the Christmas shift.'

'What's he doing?' Harry asked.

'He says he's "on the beat".' Siri replied with a shrug. 'Whatever it is, it's not for us to know.'

Molly and the kids made plans to visit Arthur again on Christmas Day after lunch, and they would need two Order escorts. Rema was a little unsure about being one of them. Firstly, it felt like intruding on a family matter.

'Oh, no. He'll be delighted, honestly,' Molly said. 'He's been lonely down there.'

Secondly, she didn't like to leave Siri alone in the house at Christmas. Though Siri was in an exceptionally benign mood. She curled up on the sofa by the fire like a contented country hound.

'I'll just take a nap or something,' she said. 'Give Arthur my best.'

Thirdly, they were going to the Serious Bites Ward. Order duty and loyalty to friends were about the only things that could ever have persuaded Rema to return to that place.

It was not so bad at first. As she followed the family, dutifully carrying a bag of presents, she was reassured to note that the corridor was wider and lighter than she remembered, probably because she was two feet taller. There were Christmas decorations everywhere and carols sounded faintly from a wireless in one of the rooms. Most importantly Arthur was much improved and lively, and it was easy to lose herself in the Weasleys' mutual joy.

'The presents!' Mrs Weasley exclaimed. Rema held them up dutifully.

'Just tip them onto the bed,' Arthur said. 'Oh, it feels like Hogwarts again!'

As Rema did so, her eyes fixed on the bedding; white flowers on a purple background. After all this time, they were still using that same design. She had read books under it, watched the sunrise through it, sweated and bled into it. But from the outside it reminded her of something else.

Her first experience of separation from her parents was not at nursery like most children, but in this ward. Due to her age they'd kept her in for two months after the bite, which was longer than her mother or father could take off work. One day she had a procedure directly after breakfast - she had long forgotten what, those details somehow hadn't stayed with her - and so by lunchtime she hadn't seen them for over twelve hours, and her young heart was breaking with longing.

She remembered a Mediwitch leading her by the hand back to the ward, and when she turned the corner, there, waiting on those purple bedcovers, was a folder. 'My Magic Animal Kingdom: a new animal for you every fortnight!'

On the inside cover, beside the first entry (A for Acromantula) was a note. ' _To Rema, for being so brave. I can't wait to collect all the animals with you. Love from Daddy'_.

 _Oh, my dad…_  All at once a veil had come down between herself and the Weasleys' festivities. She glanced away around the ward and the other patients. There was a man sat up in bed opposite Arthur, who dramatically cast his head to the side just as she looked in his direction.

She knew immediately that he was a werewolf. She didn't like to think about how; it reminded her too vividly that she was not a human. From the scowl on his face as she approached him, a few minutes later, the man was feeling the same way.

His arm was in a sling and so it had been some time since he'd shaved. The long stubble accentuated the dull greyness of his skin, and the red in his eyes.

'You must be the  _nice lady_  he mentioned,' he said. 'I suppose you've got a husband to look after you. Alright for some.'

Rema held up her left hand. 'I'm not married. And do I look pampered?'

That morning she actually had been, with Molly cooking, but one turkey dinner didn't change the fact her clothes were outsized and her hair was streaked with grey. His eyes apologised, even though he did not.

'What do you want with me?'

She dithered, not sure if she should take a seat.

'I thought you might want someone to talk to. It is Christmas.'

'I have my own friends, thanks.' He paused. 'They're coming tomorrow when the trains start again.'

She could hear North Wales in his accent. Talking to other Welsh people always brought out her own.

'Where do you live?'

His mouth twitched hesitantly before he spoke. 'Rhyl. Why?'

'Just wondering. My parents took me to the beach there once.' She decided not to add  _Before I was covered in scars_. 'Also, I think the nearest place you can buy Wolfsbane Potion from there is Llanberis.'

He actually looked up then. His beard had hidden how young he was; he couldn't have been more than twenty-five.

'Seriously? They told me I was gonna have to go to Cardiff.'

That must have been salt in the wound. If he wasn't a good Apparater, it was a long journey by broom, and not a pleasant one with the thick of winter ahead.

'Yes,' she said. 'There's a old local who does it. I don't remember the address off the top of my head, but I could send it to you?'

He visibly stiffened, as if she'd begged him for money. Or tried to touch him. 'How about  _you_  give me  _your_  address.'

Over the years Rema had met a few people bitten as adults. Since she barely remembered not being a werewolf, it was still a little hard to imagine how it felt, when overnight the people who you'd once seen as a stain on the community became the only ones who understood you.

'Alright.' She pulled a tissue from a box on his bedside and transfigured it to parchment, then cast a charm to dictate the address of her old cottage. It had no new tenants (probably because it was barely habitable), but she sent an owl there once a week to collect any post.

'I'll also put you in touch with my friend.' She added the address for Lightning, the young man she had met through her old creditors. They had stayed in touch since she'd persuaded him to give up the hired goon trade. 'He's a werewolf as well, of course. He's around your age, you might get along better.'

'Fine,' he blurted out, 'Great.'

There was nothing more to say. Looking back towards Arthur, she noticed the kids still hadn't returned, and he was flicking through a new book while Molly nursed a cup of tea, her face still grumpy.

Rema gave her companion her friendliest 'nice to meet you' smile and turned to head back, when he said in a low voice, 'Can I ask you something?'

A hundred answers shot up in her head.  _Yes, you do remember everything afterwards. No, there's no such thing as the Homorphous Charm._

'Anything,' she said softly.

'How do you deal with the pain?' he said. His voice cracked on the last word.

Another thing that hadn't changed in thirty years was how little the Healers could do about this part. It was still considered an affliction on wizarding society, not on the bodies of humans.

'It'll feel different once you've experienced it a couple of times. You'll get to know it, it'll become yours. Everyone finds their own routine,' she said. 'Pain potions, charms, hot baths, exercise, meditation. The critical thing is to care for your mind as well as your muscles.'

'I'm already going mad and I haven't changed yet,' he said, in a light, humorous tone that was all the sadder for how put on it was.

She dug her hands in her pockets, and her eyes found a point on the floor. 'I've transformed over three hundred times now and I haven't found many upsides to it. We are pushed to the very limits of human endurance, over and over and over again. But what gives me my pride is…at least no one can say I am not strong.'

He nodded, and fell silent. His body seemed to wilt a little, though whether through catharsis at getting the question out or sheer exhaustion from his wounds, she could not tell.

'My name is Oliver, by the way' he said. 'Oliver Roberts.'

'Rema Lupin,' she said. 'It's a pleasure to meet you.'

'...Merry Christmas, Rema Lupin,' he said, his eyes shining.

'Merry Christmas, Oliver Roberts.'

She gave him a nod of camaraderie, then turned to go back to Arthur.

 _What 'pride' did you mean?_ she asked herself.  _You haven't been proud of yourself since you were sixteen and thought you were special and interesting because you broke the rules at Hogwarts. You've lived a long time now. You know what you really are._

She did not hear from Oliver Roberts again, but Lightning did. He confirmed in his next letter to her that Oliver had approached him, and he'd invited Oliver to join him and his mates in their pre- and post-moon drinks (she had forgotten to mention 'real ale' as a method of pain management, and that was probably another reason she wasn't invited). Satisfied that he was in good hands, she moved on, focusing her attention once again on Order work, and Harry.

It was not until the end of March that she heard of him again. It was the new moon, the day all werewolves collected social security from the Ministry, and she saw Lightning in the queue next to hers. There was an unwritten rule of silence in these queues; it was probably influenced by the way the staff stared like lemurs out of their dark booths, like your need for them to do something they were being paid to do was highly antisocial. She gave him a smile and mouthed 'Alright?', and he returned a severe look that said  _We need to talk_.

She met him just outside the doors. She prepared to offer him a cup of tea at a café as she might have done with Harry, but he skipped pleasantries completely.

'Where have you been?' he asked, almost angrily. 'I've been trying to write to you and the letters come back. I went to your place and they're knocking it down. I thought something had happened to you!'

She faltered. She knew about the cottage, of course, but hadn't expected anyone to notice. 'I'm sorry. I couldn't say anything at the time. What's wrong?'

He gestured with his head for her to follow him, and they walked back out to Muggle London and into a busy morning market, where they could move between shoppers and stall holders rushing back and forth. Even among the Muggles they would look an odd couple; a skinny, disfigured woman pushing middle age hugging a cloak around her, and a six-foot plus, muscular young man wearing an England shirt for a sport they wouldn't know England played. Lightning's eyes darted around suspiciously.

Finally, under the cover of a stall holder shouting 'POUND A BOWL', he said, 'It's Roberts. He's missing. Vanished, overnight.'

That terrible heartache she'd got from Roberts' dark, bloodshot eyes came back to her immediately.

'How long has he been gone?'

'Twelve days,' he said, 'Since just after the moon.' There must have been something that altered in her expression because he pressed a hand on her arm and said urgently, 'I swear, it's not that. There's something going on. I went round his place on Saturday, right, the day after, in the evening, just to see how he was doing. I should've gone earlier, but I was -'

'No, I get you,' she said. They walked quickly, moving from the fresh food to the next most crowded area, the electronics and entertainment.

'Last month I let myself in. This month, he let me in. He was up and about and get this, he was wearing  _dress robes_. He looked terrible. Sweating buckets,' Lightning drew an arc across his chest to show the size of the marks, 'and he wasn't talking right. Said he had to go to a meeting. I said, what meeting? It's like six o'clock on a Saturday, and you look like hell.'

'Did you ask him if he had any cuts?' she said firmly, trying not to sound too much like a teacher. 'He might have had blood poisoning.'

'Yeah, that's what I thought. But he said he wasn't hurt at all, he'd had Wolfsbane; these people got it for him, these people he's meeting. He said I should come along as well. "They help people like us", "They're the future". That's when I remembered what you said to me, about the people who target us for weapons. I tried to get more out of him, the way you would, except not so clever. Who are they, how did you find them, how come they paid for your potion, stuff like that. And that's when he said they didn't want to take advantage or anything, it's a political thing. He said they said wizards have abused us for long enough and they wanted to help us revenge ourselves.'

That word,  _revenge_ , told Rema everything. There had been various movements for the cause of werewolf rights over the decades, but they typically spoke of equity and common humanity. Even activists with the most virulent hatred of wizards described their goals as justice.  _Revenge_ , on the other hand, was not a word to be sewn to a flag or codified in law, but painted across the sky, in the green smoke of the Avada Kedavra.

'I told him he was too ill to go,' Lightning said, 'but he wouldn't listen, and in the end he told me he had to leave. I said I'd come round in the morning to make him a fry up - that's another thing we did last moon - and he said "Alright". But when I did go round the next day, he wasn't there. I came back a few hours later, still not there. I've been going back every day, and when I look through the window nothing has moved. I've asked as many people as I can.' He put an arm around her and whispered in her ear. 'And I've told the Aurors. They got me to give a statement. Don't tell anyone I spoke to them.'

'It'll be fine,' she said, touching his shoulder briefly. He drew away, looking awkward.

'And I guess you haven't heard anything either?'

'No, I haven't, I'm sorry' she said. 'If I do, I'll write to you. You can't write to me any more, but I can guarantee I'll come to get my money every month. We can talk then.'

The truth was that she no longer needed that money. Thanks to the Order and Siri's inheritance, total destitution was, for now, behind her. Nonetheless, the reason it was handed out on the new moon was only thanks to pressure from werewolf rights lobbyists, because it was the day werewolves were least likely to be unwell, miss their opportunity to collect, and as a result, be struck off. Rema didn't know how long her luck with the Order would last, so she collected without fail.

He nodded and thanked her. Their friendship was not so strong that they could easily move to another topic of conversation, especially after one so painful. They bought coffee in polystyrene cups and talked briefly about how crap it was. But before she could make her excuses to leave, he took another look around and lowered his voice.

'Who is he?' he asked.

'Who?' she said.

'You left your house pretty suddenly, didn't you?'

She'd been around long enough to pick up what he was thinking. It happened to a lot of women, and werewolves had particular vulnerabilities. She drew her cup of coffee to her chest.

'Don't worry about it.'

Lightning straightened, emphasising his height. 'He can't scare me. Just tell me where he is and I'll knock his teeth down his throat.'

She was moved by this; she was not used to being seen as deserving of care or protection, not by anyone outside of the Order. It felt dishonourable to let him believe it, but she had no choice.

'Thank you. But you're better off out of it,' she told him sincerely.

'Alright,' he said, one hand resting over his wand. 'Just tell me if you change your mind.'

For several nights afterwards she dreamed of Oliver Roberts. Every time she saw him he was in patched and scruffy dress robes, and his voice was as small and broken as it had been on Christmas Day.  _Revenge, Rema Lupin_ , he said, as long snakes of green smoke constricted around him.

She could not have told Lightning, but she did know one person who could help find out what had happened. Yet again she found herself addictively watching the kitchen clock for six to see if Tonks would pay a visit. One rainy Tuesday, when Molly brought over a fresh Bakewell tart dotted with whole almonds, he arrived.

'This is not why I'm here,' he said, edging out a thick slice and wrapping it in kitchen roll. 'But it is part of it, not gonna lie.' He took a bite, closed his eyes happily. 'Oh my God. Raspberry. Yes. You know my mum makes it with apricot. Honestly why would you go for second best?'

She did not smile. She was so anxious to talk to him she was rocking back and forth on her toes, crowding him.

'Tonks…if a werewolf went missing, would the Auror Office investigate?'

'Of course,' he said. 'I'd do everything I could to find you.'

She ignored that. 'I realise there's confidentiality to consider and so on, but…can you tell me if you've had any cases like that recently?'

Tonks swallowed his mouthful of food. Though he didn't morph at all, his presence changed; all at once he was an Auror on the hunt.

'You're talking about Oliver Roberts,' he said.

'Yes.'

'Young bloke. Only bitten just before Christmas.'

'Yes.' She sighed. 'Do you know of his whereabouts?'

'I do.' His eyes softened. 'I'm afraid he's dead.'

She had told herself again and again that he was, and yet it chipped a piece off her heart, all the same.

'And,' Tonks added, 'I know exactly who killed him.'

'What?'

He pulled out a chair and gestured to it.

'Get comfortable. It's time I told you about  _my_  mission.'


	3. Impressed (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief mention of vomiting in this chapter, no other warnings.
> 
> Thank you very much for the kudos! If you like this and you have time, please do consider leaving a comment. It's new territory for me and I am keen to know what people think.

Tonks moved aside his tea and cake crumbs and leaned in closely. 'For the past six months I've been profiling the Death Eater recruitment process.' He spread his hands across the table and raised one hand. 'The ideology, as you're seeing with the werewolves, is spreading like a fungus.' He raised his other hand. 'But when it comes to recruiting individuals - especially people who are gonna do the heavy lifting - they've got problems.'

Rema considered this. 'It was the same before. The people most drawn to their ideology are not in the habit of taking orders or making personal sacrifices. Which is a rather inconvenient mentality for a foot soldier.'

'Yep. They're desperate for more boots on the ground, but their leaders were there the first time, and they've seen a lot of wannabes come and go. They also know that if the deeper they let someone in, the more information they're going to take with them if they get spooked and scarper. So even with the most perfect recruits, they're taking weeks. Take the case of Jacques Rosier. Nineteen years old. Son of an old French family that's maintained their blood purity even though they're huge and span multiple countries. Got almost full marks in his BAC-S at Beauxbatons, and duelling champion to boot.'

It was painfully familiar. Throughout the first part of the war, Siri and Jane had argued about whether the blood purity obsession would thin out as the generations passed. Jane had insisted it would, while Siri had not been shy to proclaim it would not. It was disheartening to hear a crystal clear example of how right Siri had been.

'Rosier's not just parroting what his parents think, either,' Tonks said, as if he'd read Rema's mind. 'He's read all the literature going on blood purity in English and French, he could practically lecture in it. And yet they kept him in interrogation for two solid days, no sleep and hardly anything to eat, to see if he was really for the cause. Then, after he survived that, all they let him do was take notes in their meetings and keep track of their equipment.'

'Wait - what equipment?' Rema had been thinking so much about blood purity ideology that it was only now she noticed there was something odd about this story. She held up a hand. 'How do you know all this?'

Tonks took in a deep breath, and slowly opened and closed his eyes. Rema looked into them, and felt a visceral surge of fear and awe. It was one of those moments she saw again how this boyish punk Hufflepuff could be an elite member of the Auror Office. With another second the feeling passed and she understood what she was literally seeing; Tonks had, for the first time since she'd known him, changed his eyes. She still recognised them. They'd looked down at her with kindness after full moons, and with murderous rage from duels and Wanted posters. They were the eyes of the Black family.

'I am Jacques Rosier,' he said. 'I've been in deep cover.'

His eyelashes lengthened. His lips became fuller and his rounded cheeks thinned to sharp edges. His dark hair shrank towards his skull until it looked shaved. It was no wonder the Death Eaters were convinced. They saw something of themselves in him, even if they couldn't tell what.

'Tonks,' Rema whispered, her breath sticking in her chest. 'What have you done?'

He stuck out his arm and tugged at his sleeve. The very motion made every muscle in Rema's body tense. But it was spotless, innocent. He had to brush off crumbs of Bakewell tart as he drew it back.

'I know I'm a Metamorphmagus and I can't prove I haven't got the Mark,' he said, 'but I swear I'd rather die than take it. And I'm almost done now. Kingsley and I have agreed.'

'I would have thought better of Kingsley than to put you through something like this,' she said, more to herself than him, but he snapped.

'What? Who would be better for this than me?' He glared at her. 'These are my eyes. My mum got me to take my dad's.'

For a moment neither of them could speak. The Tonks family's long-held pain fell over them like a shadow.

'Anyway,' Tonks said after a while, his voice returned to normal. 'You may be wondering what this has to do with Oliver Roberts.'

His hair was back to its previous green, and his face was familiar again. Rema realised she had hardly moved for the entire time he'd been talking.

'As we know, your typical new Death Eater has led quite a pampered existence up to this point. And not all of them are psychopaths; there's empathy in their biology even if they'd prefer it weren't. And that means they need to be taught to kill.' He paused, drawing on some internal reserve of strength or wisdom. 'So they start with people…people they don't see as human.'

Rema drew back her chair from the table so quickly it screeched against the floor. Instinct commanded her to _get out_ , as if she was going to be sick, but as they were below ground there was nowhere she could go. She strode across the room to the sink and turned on the tap, letting cool, clear presence of the water connect her sickened mind back to itself.

Tonks was beside her. He placed his hand on her arm and said, not an Auror but her friend again, 'I'm sorry'.

She stared at the water a little longer, not daring to blink in case her eyes took it as a signal to cry. Tonks did not move his hand. The first coherent thoughts that emerged from the roaring in her head were _Why are you comforting me, I don't need, I don't want, I don't deserve it._

'Sorry,' she said, 'I've been a werewolf all my life, I don't hold any illusions but sometimes it still feels -'

'Of course,' he said, moving in close to her. 'Of course.'

She leaned away from the sink, tucked her hair back behind her ears, and put the burning sensation that ran from her mouth to her stomach aside from her thoughts. Whenever she had a moment of vulnerability she much preferred if her friends could forget about it.

'Do they bring the new Death Eaters the hostages, or does the new Death Eater capture someone themselves?'

'It varies,' he said. 'But it's very unlikely that a new Death Eater would have led a capture themselves, so effectively it's always led by the more senior lot.'

'Jacques Rosier isn't just any new Death Eater, though, is he?'

Tonks caught on almost as quickly as the words left her lips. 'No,' he said. 'It's too risky, for the mission and for you.'

'Not as risky as it is for the poor werewolf who has to be their next bait.'

'Kingsley will back me up,' he said, deliberating his words, punctuating every syllable

'Will Kingsley be there?'

'…No, but -'

'How will he get to you in time?'

Tonks raised his hands in indignation. 'They know who you are! Would you really let some nineteen-year-old capture you?'

'I sometimes get pretty reckless just before a full moon,' she said. 'I make mistakes. If Jacques Rosier was foolhardy and good enough to try me…he might just be lucky.'

She smiled, though it wasn't funny, not really. She remembered that night two years ago in the Shack; she had agreed to kill Petra the honourable way with Siri, but the wolf in her could just as easily have learnt in and smashed Petra's head against the floor. Or attempted to; the moment Rema's hand went for her, Petra would have shrunk into rat form and made a break for it, and Rema would have been even more to blame for everything that followed than she was already.

He kept up the cautious, "talking to a difficult witness" tone, but she could almost see the thoughts racing behind his eyes. 'I can't let my mission be compromised.'

She folded her arms. 'Neither can I. My mission is to protect werewolves. I don't want one of them at risk when I could take that risk on myself.'

Perhaps she was reckless at new moons, as well.

-

They were to meet the Death Eaters at sunset at a select location in Dunstable. They Apparated inside a vacant shop to prepare.

'Will they ask you if you took my wand?' she asked.

'Maybe, but don't worry, I've got a decoy.' He removed a squat mahogany wand from his belt. She hoped the Death Eaters hadn't been paying enough attention to remember what her real one looked like.

'Yours in your boot?'

'Yeah.' She gave her foot a stamp. Apart from the boots she was wearing a knee-length skirt and cardigan, and despite the fact it was spring and the weather had warmed considerably, she was shivering. Just as she'd suggested, they'd arranged her false capture just before the full moon. It was coming tomorrow.

'Ready?' Tonks said.

'As I'll ever be.'

Rema lifted her chin as he cast the Incarcerous Charm around her, binding her so thickly she was a mummy of rope from the neck down. Her mouth was gagged with a white cloth. He looked at her with concern.

'I'll get them off as soon as I can, I promise.'

She nodded, trying to convey trust with her eyes.

He took a step back. The endearing scrunch of his nose was not enough to ease the shock of his disappearance into Jacques Rosier. Before he had just transformed his face; now he grew taller and thinner, his familiar thick arms shrank in his sleeves, and at the end of them were bony white hands turned even whiter as he screwed them into fists.

'Part of the act,' he said. 'I think men like Rosier have a lot of internal rage.'

The effect of his warm Lancashire accent coming out of Jacques Rosier's mouth was more nightmarish than comforting. She lowered her head and shook out her hair, assuming her own role. Tonks, or rather Rosier, grabbed her shoulder and Apparated.

Rema's bound ankles made it impossible to keep upright after Apparating, and she only saw a flash of orange before falling forward into what her skin and nose recognised as sand. The place was a Muggle building site that was deserted for the night. It was surrounded by metal sheet fencing so high that nothing could be seen from the outside, most likely not even the flashes of spells.

'Everyone's very excited that you caught your own game, Rosier,' a voice remarked, followed by a wheezing giggle. It was Alecto Carrow who had come to oversee the ceremony.

'We will have to take back a trophy. Maybe one of her paws?' Amycus Carrow's pathetic humour had not changed in fifteen years. Rema no longer needed to fake the scowl on her face.

'You want to look at 'er?' Rosier said, his accent now languid French.

'Please,' Alecto said excitedly.

Rosier lifted her bodily to her feet. He clamped his free hand around her hair and gave it a gentle tug. Rema threw her head back and whimpered accordingly.

'Rosier,' Amycus whispered in awe, 'That's _the_ werewolf. Dumbledore's werewolf.'

'She is weaker than we thought,' Rosier said with a shrug. He tugged lightly on Rema's hair again. She winced.

The Carrows exchanged a glance.

'I dunno if anyone told you, but we can't kill her,' Amycus said.

'Not if we can help it,' Alecto added.

'Greyback wants to keep her.'

'And the Dark Lord said he could.'

'Why,' Rosier drawled, 'does the Dark Lord want to appease a werewolf?'

Amycus shrugged and leaned in close to Rema, so close his chest was almost touching hers. 'She's still old enough to breed, just about. Maybe he wants an army of cubs.'

Thick, acidic disgust overwhelmed Rema, and she spat in Amycus's face. She could just as easily have vomited. Alecto shrieked and hollered.

'CLEAN IT! CLEAN IT NOW!'

Amycus raised his wand to his face and conjured soapy water, and scrubbed frantically with his hands. Rosier remained still as a statue.

'Is it in your eyes, Amycus?' Alecto sounded close to tears.

'No,' he said. He covered his face and took several deep breaths. 'No.' He looked up at Rosier. 'Torture her good.'

Rosier nodded. She felt him tense.

'I'm -' His voice cracked. 'Please could you turn around? I…this is the first time I have done this. And she is a woman.'

'Hardly,' Alecto said, glaring resentfully at Rema.

'You know the rules, Rosier. We're 'sposed to watch you,' Amycus said.

Rosier sighed and tugged at his collar. Tonks was overacting a little, but for these two it was probably helping. 'I'm sorry, it is just…easier for me that way.'

They exchanged a glance, then nodded in agreement and turned their backs.

Rosier stepped out from behind Rema. He kept his wand pointed at her at all times; he couldn't risk looking like an amateur if one of the Carrows was to turn their neck. He faced her. Squared his shoulders like he was preparing for a fist fight. It distracted her eyes so much that she didn't notice he was moving steadily backwards until he was between the two Death Eaters. It was not like Tonks to be so sure-footed. For a split-second she panicked; what if Rosier wasn't the disguise?

Rosier took aim, and without a word from him a blinding flash of white light burst from his wand.

The ropes trapping Rema loosened and fell to the floor.

' _Petrificus Totalus_!'

Rosier caught Alecto as she tipped forward, and in one step turned around to hold her between himself and Amycus. Red shot up in his hair like a flame in the dark. He was Tonks again.

Amycus couldn't fight back without risking harm to his sister. But he didn't try to. He turned and pointed his wand at Rema, fury contorting his features.

' _Crucio_!'

Rema fell hard to the ground. The curse wrapped around her like a python, rings of thick muscular force tightening with every passing second. _Son_ _of a Bludger, this hurts_ , she thought. But at least she was thinking something; she'd known pain that blasted all conscious thought out of her, leaving nothing but white noise.

 _Stay with us, Lupin_ , she told herself. _Easy does it_.

She itemised what was happening to her. Her arms and legs folded and contracted towards her, useless, withering helplessly, and her lungs heaved miserably for air. Pressure was rushing to her head: her vision was already shrinking and her skull felt like a dam about to burst. But now that she knew where the pain was, the way to free herself from it came instinctively. She rolled her shoulders to throw the dead weight of her arms to the ground, and and attempted to walk her hands forward. The feeling trickled back into them with each second of effort. Once she had them in front of her she pushed her chest upwards, stretching back her neck. _And breathe_. It was over. Every cell in her body sang in relief. She got to her feet, and slid out her wand from her boot.

For one extremely long second, both the Carrows and Tonks froze in their tracks to stare open-mouthed at her.

'Freak! Freak!' Alecto's screech broke the silence. 'I'll torture you myself!'

' _Stupefy_!' Rema launched a spell at Alecto before she could take aim, and she went sprawling backwards into a mound of steel pipes. She was bloodthirsty as ever, but still fought about as nimbly as an ox.

Tonks was now duelling Amycus, sparks flying from their wand-tips. They'd started to move around the site in fast and widening circles.

' _Protego_!' Tonks cast an uneasy Shield Charm to let himself look down at his feet, and narrowly dodged falling into a ditch. Rema was so distracted watching him that it was only when she heard the pipes roll forward that she realised Alecto had regained consciousness. She had only to glance at Alecto to see her next move in her eyes, and she leapt in one bound to cover Tonks's back with her own and block the oncoming red curse.

'Cheers,' Tonks gasped. She could feel his heart pounding as heavily as her own.

They moved in step, sweeping across the ground. Alecto struggled to keep her aim, as Tonks would pull Rema towards him just in time to let the curses fly over her head. Amycus grew more ferocious in response, his arm slashing back and forth so fast his wand was a blur. He was getting out of breath.

There was a dirt pit ahead to their left. Rema gave Tonks's loose sleeve a tug, hoping he would spot it out of the corner of his eye. His feet followed hers closer to the edge.

A white spell went past Tonks's ear, but he cringed and fell into her, feigning a hit, forcing her to take a step back and Amycus and Alecto to run forwards, so they were facing each other like pairs in a dance. Without a second's further observation, Tonks and Rema launched Stunning Charms at the Death Eaters, and they topped backwards into the pit.

Tonks linked his arm in Rema's. There was a hint of a smile in his eyes. 'Let's call it a night, shall we?'

She nodded. 'I think so.'

A second later they were in the square outside Grimmauld Place. They grabbed onto each other while they regained equilibrium, and before they has a chance to think about it this turned into a hug.

Tonks let out a sigh, and changed back to his normal shape, shrinking in height and expanding in build under Rema's hands. She rested her head on his shoulder.

'Thank you,' she said. 'I was quite frightened for a moment there.'

'I should thank you, you were incredible,' he murmured. 'You threw off the Cruciatus Curse.'

She moved away, dropping her arms awkwardly at her sides. She felt strangely embarrassed, as if she should have let it go on. 'My pain threshold is not like other people's. I try not to advertise it widely. I don't want to be tested.'

Tonks gave her a sympathetic look. 'Tomorrow I'm beginning the next phase of my mission, as the Ministry understands it. I want to start a protection programme for werewolves and other vulnerable populations against exploitation by Dark wizards. I've got the evidence I need to start now. I don't want to see any more cases like Oliver Roberts's again.'

One day she would have to tell him what it was like to hear this - to know that even in these dark, heartbreaking times that someone still had a passion to help people like her. In that moment, however, all she could do was smile at him. His grin in return was as luminous as the sun.

-

A few other Order members were hanging around Headquarters that evening, most importantly Kingsley, who had been waiting to have a mercifully quick debrief with them.

'We can't assume werewolves will come on board just by default,' Kingsley said. 'We've done very little, historically, to earn it.'

'"Trust us, we're the Ministry",' Tonks said with pained sarcasm. 'We need to be hands-off. Prove we're listening to them and we care what they think.'

She glanced between them. 'I'm probably the one to get you started on that.'

Once they were done Tonks rushed ahead upstairs to chat to Bill and Fleur with the enthusiasm child being let out of school.

'He's done incredibly well,' Rema told Kingsley. 'I was very impressed.'

Kingsley's expression was enigmatic, like an extremely interesting idea had possessed him. 'Yes, I know.'

In the few minutes she took to eat and go back upstairs to get a candle, they were all on their way out again. Tonks was already ready, cloak on, glancing at his watch, while Fleur made a show of doing up Bill's jacket for him, tenderly rubbing her nose against his as she did so.

'We're going down the pub,' Tonks said.

'That's nice,' she said, glancing back toward the living room. 'Have fun.'

'Do you fancy coming?' he said.

'Me?'

'Yeah. My round.'

Bill and Fleur had turned to watch as well; all three of them wore wide-eyed, smiley expressions.

Rema did miss the evenings in the pub they'd had in the old days. Someone (usually one of the Prewetts) always bought a couple of bottles of wine and poured everyone a generous glass. Someone else (usually Petra, who was always peckish) got the crisps. They'd have a good-natured debate, vent about what remained of their personal lives, or just play cards. She'd go home with Rowan and Jane as warm and buzzed as if she'd been released from a tight hug. Her turn at that kind of living, however, had passed a long time ago.

'Oh no,' she said. 'I…that's very nice of you, but I'm tired.'

Tonks ran a hand through his bright red hair and heaved a deliberately emphatic sigh of regret. 'Ahh. Fair do's. Maybe next time, then.'

'Yes, maybe,' she said, returning the courtesy.

Once she closed the living room door she heard Fleur say, 'Oh, Tonks', followed by gentle, teasing laughter from her and Bill. All three of them left together, and after the cracks of their Apparitions outside the door, a deep, accusatory silence fell over the living room.

Rema caught her reflection in the window. Her hair was messy, her clothes looked even shabbier than usual, and the lines in her face were deep and obvious even from a distance. She looked like, no, she _was_ a hag.

She wished, as she often did, that there was someone, anyone, who she could turn to on a night like this and say 'I'm tired of being so abnormal'. They wouldn't act like she was just a werewolf. They'd be kind, patient, hopeful when she couldn't be. After so many years alone it was staggering, sometimes, for her to imagine that most people did have someone like that, just there, right beside them.

She did have Siri, and thank Merlin for that, because Siri was the only thing between her and total despair. But Siri had her own problems. Besides, at this time of night, any course of serious thinking could come to no good. Rema went to her room, picked an old favourite on magical plants from her bookshelf, and went to bed. She didn't get out until sunset the following day, when Siri escorted her to the cellar ahead of the full moon.

-

Sunrise appeared in grey slivers of light around the sides of the cellar door. Her first conscious sensation, as every other month, was of being weighted to the floor, twisted in whatever awkward position the second transformation had left her in. Her tortured muscles would not be moved and her mind was too exhausted to try to make them. The next thing she knew, a warm blanket was covering her. It was smooth and soft from being freshly washed by Molly the day before, and it smelled faintly of lavender.

Siri never spoke in these first moments of dawn; she understood that Rema was too busy simmering in pain to listen. She tucked the blanket around her friend and guided her up the cellar stairs to a hot bath, Rema leaning so heavily on her that Siri was three quarters of the way to carrying her. Apart from easing Rema's muscles, the bath was essential to ensure that her temperature didn't drop too quickly after the exertion of the transformation. However, there was no medical need for the sweet strawberry bubble bath, or for Siri to comb shampoo and conditioner through her hair.

'How was it?' she asked at last.

'Alright,' Rema said. Her throat was sore and tight. 'Thanks for being there.'

'It's the most useful thing I do around here,' Siri said.

Once Rema was out and dry, Siri helped her into a dressing gown and guided her to bed, where there was a hot cup of tea waiting for her. Often she did not manage to drink this before falling asleep, but it provided a lot of comfort just by being there, and being hers.

'Let me know if you want anything,' Siri said.

'I will.'

'Oh! Tonks left you a book to read. It's on the table downstairs, I'll get it.'

Rema suddenly felt herself alive. 'Tonks?'

Siri smiled fondly, almost like a nurse. 'Never mind for now. We'll talk about it when you're awake, Moony.'

 _Tonks_. Rema replayed those moments at the building site in her mind. He'd been so quick, so sharp, and so brave it was literally breathtaking. When she closed her eyes she could feel it even more powerfully than she had in the moment; the cold air in her lungs, the sweat on her neck, the satisfying harmony of her muscles in the dance of the fight. The heat of Tonks's strong, broad back against hers. How, the moment they'd arrived outside Headquarters, she'd wanted more than anything for time to stand still.

'Impressed', she realised, was not the word for what she felt about Nymphidius Tonks.

 _Can I have a little crush?_ she thought. _If I just don't tell anyone? Yes. I am a werewolf and the war is upon us, but I can have strawberry bath bubbles, and warm blankets, and tea, and I can fancy Tonks a little bit_. _These things are not too much._

She settled into her pillows, gratefully ambushed by happiness, and closed her eyes.


	4. Smitten

Rema could not call developing a crush on Tonks a decision, but it was the best and worst thing her mind had ever done. Just to have him to daydream about felt like a sweet gift from the universe at what was likely the last part of her life. If he walked away now with a beautiful, talented young witch, as she knew he was destined to, she would have felt nothing but gratitude. But there was the rub; he hadn’t walked away yet.

She kept up her support of his work with Dark creatures, as it aligned with her own, but even apart from that she never went long without seeing him. When she needed muscle relaxants after the full moon, Siri sent Tonks to Diagon Alley to buy them. When the Order spent an afternoon doing formal duelling training which accidentally morphed into an informal tournament, they both reached the semi-final. One evening, Hestia let the Order know that the magical weapons exhibit at the British Museum of Magic was not being moved to Paris as advertised, but to an undisclosed location in Rutland. Two Order members would need to track the delivery overnight. Tonks volunteered.

‘Pleasure to work with you again, Hes,’ he said.

‘I can’t do it,’ Hestia said, cringing a little. ‘My daughter’s visiting…’

Tonks’s eyes turned towards Rema, and so, at least it felt, did those of the entire Order.  
‘Do you have a better place to be tonight than Rutland?’ he said, and winked.

Once Rema was alone in her room she grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote herself a frantic note: _I can't stand it I can't stand it I can't stand it_. She then incinerated the words with her wand, and fanned at the smoke. She'd need another routine soon - it was too warm to light fires now and no one would be convinced she'd taken up smoking exclusively in her bedroom.

One technique she had, which consumed the feelings even faster than flames, was imagining how he would react if he knew. Tonks was kind-hearted and earnest, but it was one thing to be a friend to someone like her, and another to accept that they might want to date you, to kiss you, to… and when she got to that point she was too disgusted by herself to complete the thought.

What was more, even if she were cured of lycanthropy (impossible), and even if it did not bother Tonks that she was on the wrong side of thirty-five (impossible), there was no getting around the fact she was just not an attractive woman. She had come to terms with that even before her hair started to grey.

In her sixth year at Hogwarts, in the aftermath of the prank when Siri convinced Snape to walk straight into the path of the wolf, Rema had spent a long few weeks avoiding her friends, and as a result, more or less everyone. The worst part of each day was dinner time. Students weren't permitted to take dinner outside the Great Hall unless necessary, and “avoiding eye contact with Siri Black” was not a valid excuse. She would arrive late, perch on the end of the Gryffindor table next to the seventh years, and hold a book up around herself like an old-fashioned dressing screen.

One night, about two weeks into this routine, she had been interrupted by someone clearing their throat and asking in a soft Scottish accent:  
‘Miss Lupin? May I talk to you?’

Benjy Fenwick, the Head Boy at the time, had sat down next to her. She’d frozen, wishing for something, anything to stop what she knew he was going to say: _Dumbledore wants to see you…_

‘Are you any relation to Lyall Lupin?’

She’d been so surprised by the question that for a second she couldn't answer. ‘He’s my dad. Why?’

‘We’ve got to read his essay on Dementors.’ Benjy had unrolled a copy of what Rema instantly recognised as the report of the 1954 Alderney trials, where her father and his colleagues had discovered that the depressive moods Dementors induced in humans took effect even when they could not be perceived by human senses, and even when humans did not know they were in the vicinity.

‘I know his conclusion is right,’ Benjy had said, ‘but I don’t understand how people can feel the effect of Dementors without physically sensing them. And I thought maybe you would.’

She knew her father's lecture on the subject almost as well as he did. ‘Um, yeah, I’ll help you.’

‘You’re an angel.’ He’d glanced around conspiratorially and grinned at her. ‘Don't tell anyone else yet. I want to keep you to myself for a wee while.’

She had never looked at him closely before, and had not noticed the sweet roundness of his cheeks, the warmth of his brown eyes, the romantic - kissable, she’d dared to think - shape of his lips. Pleasure rushed through her like a spell.

‘Of course,’ she’d said.

Not long after this episode Benjy had returned to his friendship group and Rema to hers. The Marauders were keen to earn Rema's trust again, and had offered her the moral support she needed to keep the crush going. She had conjured many fantasies about her future with him, mostly modest and domestic in nature. They would marry in the Lake District, equidistant from her parents and his, and settled in Scotland, because she couldn't tear him away from it. Though she would make sure to teach Welsh to their children (adopted orphans - pregnancy was out of the question for her, but Benjy promised he would find a way for them to become parents, and he did).

In the real world time marched on, and Rema had forgotten about him until an afternoon three years later. She had been on the sofa recovering from a mission with a bowl of hot chocolate and four layers of blankets, when the Floo had flared up and Petra’s voice had bellowed, ‘GUESS WHO JUST JOINED THE ORDER!’

Rema had set her chocolate aside and thrown off the blankets, staggering upright on legs cramped from hours of work. She’d painted her nails, put on make-up to cover her scars and the rings around her eyes, spent a frustrating hour attempting to curl her hair. Jane had lent her a dress which complemented her figure. Benjy had spent the whole night visibly enraptured…by Siri. Naturally.

-

The Auror Office was no less bureaucratic than the rest of the Ministry, and all projects had to be signed off by the Head of the Aurors, Rufus Scrimgeour, and his management team. It took Tonks a considerable effort to get a slot at their monthly board meeting for his Dark creature protection programme, and he insisted she join him for the big day, ‘not as a token werewolf, as my partner who knows more than me’. If anyone asked, he would claim they met through Professor Sprout, who was still a good friend to them both.

Rema arrived by Floo to the Ministry's Atrium at the appointed time and made her way past a flow of fast-moving professionals to the Fountain of Magical Brethren, the appointed meeting place. She waited with her back to it - she’d seen the centaur's saccharine gaze at the wizards once before and felt no urge to see it again - but she could smell the iron underneath the statue's gold plating. The symbolism writes itself, she thought.  
Tonks had to meet her to let her into the Department, but there was such energy coming off him when he jogged up to greet her that she could believe he'd been waiting for her all day, like an affectionate puppy.

'It’s a bit on-the-nose for us to meet here, isn't it?' she said, jabbing a thumb behind her.  
Tonks’s smile only brightened. ‘Today we’re learning what "brethren" really means.’

They took a lift to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and crossed the floor to a pair of imposing polished oak doors. Rema imagined the Auror office would follow the same theme, with elegant roll-top desks and that slightly sweet dusty smell of rooms left unaltered for decades. Instead it was - a modern office. Bright lighting above their heads, a carpet in generic stain-absorbing blue under their feet. Colleagues chatting and laughing across their cubicles, and on a counter in the corner, a steaming kettle and half a lemon drizzle cake.

‘You'd be surprised how much Auror work is sitting behind a desk eating cake,’ Tonks said. ‘And then in the evenings I eat more cake. I’m actually very fat, I just use my morphing to hide it.’

Rema took the invitation to glance at the smooth surface of his T-shirt where it skimmed over his toned stomach. He did have a thick build, but it was all muscle, like a professional Beater. She had to dig her nails into her palm to force herself to concentrate.

‘Honestly,’ she said, a little too late for a witty rejoinder. ‘You’re like a cat with two families.’ Tonks snickered anyway

Even his desk, an awkward little piece between two other, more favourable ones, was fuel to her infatuated imagination. It was covered with details of him: cans of strawberry Spark energy drink lined up against his cubicle wall; quills of various shapes and sizes collected in a broken mug he must have stopped repairing, and though he had a note to remind him to lock his desk drawer, it seemed he had no trouble concentrating on his work, as he handed her two armfuls of parchment rolls. She lifted one up - it was covered in his scratchy, excited handwriting.

‘What is all this?’

‘Intelligence,’ Tonks said. ‘Our knowledge of werewolf communities is extremely patchy, I had to go back a long way into the archives to get a decent overview. But it’s miles better than what we have on vampires. If I ever get to expand to them, I’ll have to liaise with our continental equivalents.’

She couldn't help letting out a laugh of astonishment. ‘How do you have time to do all this?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m intelligent.’

‘He doesn't get out much!’ Someone in the cubicle behind called out.

‘Shut up, Williamson,’ Tonks called back, rolling his eyes. ‘Have a read,’ he urged Rema. ‘See what you think.’

She found a spare surface and leafed through the parchments. Tonks had filled a whole page on Fenrir Greyback. Scanning it she saw it was mostly summary notes with little indication of any impression the data had made on him, except for one note at the end.

_Whereabouts unknown, believed Unplottable 24/03/94 (Seriously?!)_

'There’s Auror data on packs,’ he said. ‘Witness statements, incident reports. It seems like the only time anyone pays attention to them is when there’s crime. But that’s just all the more reason to start turning the tide. Isn’t it?’

He had an endearing habit of looking up at her like she could match all the curiosity, brilliance and passion he had within him. She didn’t know if she ever could, but she wanted to hold off letting him down for as long as she could.

‘I certainly can’t argue with that,’ she said.

The room they were meeting in was even more unremarkable than the main office. Even though in the real world it was a fine May afternoon, the magical sky outside the meeting room’s windows was set to an autumnal grey mist, and the only eye-catching thing on the walls was a plain black and white clock. The tables and chairs were set in a square, a conscious contrast to the hierarchy that the Wizengamot, with its towering angular benches and amphitheatre-style seating, imposed with medieval pomposity.

No assistance from architecture was necessary. Scrimgeour commanded attention just by casting his eyes around the table. He had an air of magnanimity about him, something that marked him as an authority without any external signals, like King Arthur among his knights. From what Rema had heard about him, he was an intelligent man who kept his distance from the political quarrels of other Ministry figureheads. He would, she hoped, recognise Death Eater tactics when he heard them.

When Tonks’s slot on the agenda arrived he remained sitting down. At first he held his parchments, but put them down to gesticulate and did not pick them up again. He explained the case of Oliver Roberts, and, deftly avoiding explaining where exactly it all came from, detailed the evidence of the exploitation that had preceded his murder.

‘When I went through the archives I found many cases like this in the run-up to the first war, some going back to the sixties. Each one has its own set of circumstances, of course, but what they have in common is that the victims had no network of protection. No employment, no family, no consistent medical care, and as a result, no one to notice if they went missing for days at a time. There was also no appropriate response to -’

‘Mr Tonks,’ Scrimgeour interrupted, ‘Dark creatures undoubtedly have colourful history with us, but they are a very small proportion of our population. The public at present are in a state of extreme anxiety about Dark magic. They will not appreciate us using their tax money to focus on protecting a handful of creatures, especially when it is they who are perpetrating the threat.’

‘Three werewolves have turned up dead in the past eight months,’ Tonks said. ‘If one part of our community isn’t safe, our community isn't safe.’

One of the other senior Aurors let out a deep sigh. ‘You’ve done an impressive amount of reading on this population, Mr Tonks, but you haven’t met them.’ She took a quick glance at Rema. ‘Not many of them, anyway. Werewolves have always fought and killed each other, it’s what they do. You’re not the first young Auror to want to sort it out, and you won’t be the last, either.’

There was a ripple of amused agreement in the room, like parents thinking of incorrigible toddlers. Tonks averted his eyes, visibly struggling for words. Rema felt a surge of anger. She could take all kinds of insults from normal wizards and witches, but she could not stand them claiming to understand werewolves better than she did. She cleared her throat.

'Werewolves may be dangerous at full moon, but as human beings we are no more prone to violence than anyone else, that has been proven in many international studies. I've been a werewolf for thirty years and I have never set out to kill anyone.'

'Except a school full of children,' Scrimgeour said.

Blood rushed to Rema's head so quickly she almost fainted on the spot.

Scrimgeour continued, his tone barely rising in register. 'I'm not sure why Dumbledore is still so keen to protect you, Miss Lupin, but you can have it from me that he's the only reason you are not currently serving the prison sentence you richly deserve.'

Tonks straightened up, fiery again. ‘If we're so concerned about child endangerment, why is Fenrir Greyback still at large?'

'…Thank you, Mr Tonks, but I think we need to move on,' Scrimgeour said.

Tonks's face was dark when they left, and the red that seeped into his hair blazed like lava. He found an empty meeting room along a corridor and strode inside, and she followed him, closing the door firmly behind them. In the time that she took to do this, Tonks had already launched himself at the blackboard. She sat on a table and watched him.

‘I know I take the piss out of Moody’s “constant vigilance", but it's basic Auror theory,’ he said. He drew a circle, but with a piece chipped out, and with broad strokes drew arrows pouring into the space. ‘If you leave a gap, Dark wizards will find it, and when they know they’re getting away with something, they escalate.’ He jabbed the chalk at the board with each word. ‘More exploitation, more abuse, more violence, more death.’

‘That’s why it really matters, isn’t it,’ she said, suppressing emotion from her voice as well as she could. ‘Not that werewolves are dying, but because they’re a step towards normal witches and wizards being killed.’

Tonks dropped his chalk and rushed towards her, crouching at her feet. 'Rema, I’m sorry. I swear that is not what I meant.’

‘But it’s true,’ she said. ‘And I’m the reason for it. I had the most prestigious job a werewolf has been given in this country in decades, and I…ruined is not a strong enough word for what I did. I’ve dragged my kind down, and now no one will help them.’

Tonks got up to sit beside her, and before she could see what he was doing he’d put an arm around her. She needed to be angry, to be sad, to be useful, anything but this, and yet when she felt the weight of it against her back she could picture the two of them alone in her room at night, holding each other tenderly. The image was so vivid she momentarily believed he must have seen it, and she squeezed her eyes closed with mortification.

He dropped his arm and rested it behind her. ‘Hey, listen. Scrimgeour may not care, but we know some people who will.’

-

The Order was sympathetic, even more so than Rema could have predicted.

‘People of mixed blood have more humanity inside of them than a lot of these people,’ Fleur said. ‘It makes me sick. No justice at all.’

Mundungus snorted. ‘They never change.’

Kingsley did not mince his words. ‘This is a shameful day for the Auror Office.’

Siri held Rema’s hand under the table. Rema would not have accepted such a gesture from anyone else, but Siri could read her mind.

Dumbledore was making a rare appearance that evening. He had listened in silence to Tonks and Rema’s second description of the case, but it would not have surprised Rema if he knew everything already, and perhaps more.

‘Not entirely shameful, Kingsley,’ he said, at last. ‘Young Tonks is a credit to your training, and to Alastor’s mentorship. Tonks, I agree with the intention of your plan. We must protect Dark creatures from exploitation, both by defending them against those who would harm them and by giving them our support. However, I also have connections to Dark creature populations, going back many decades, and I have made and seen made many reasonable, sincere offers of support utterly defeated by the false promises of Voldemort’s supporters. You would need a lot of time to earn their trust, and there is not a lot of time.’

‘But -’ Tonks protested.

‘Therefore,’ Dumbledore said, ‘if we want to save lives, we need to make use of the connections we already have.’

He looked across his half-moon spectacles at Rema. His eyes had the same gentle expression that he had given her the day they met, in front of her parents’ fire, and invited her to play Gobstones. That moment was permanently fixed in her memory, as the first time someone saw her as the normal girl she had always wanted to be. She owed her very life to his generosity. _I will never betray you again,_ she thought. _Whatever you ask of me is yours._

The meeting was a difficult one, and everyone, even Tonks, seemed keen to make an early retreat to their beds. Only Rema and Siri remained in the kitchen. Siri brought out of a bottle of Firewhiskey (Mundungus had brought a new batch) and poured two glasses, conjuring some ice.

‘You look like you need it tonight, old friend.’

Rema’s head was spinning. _I’m going to spy on a pack. This isn’t just duelling and tracking. This could destroy me from the inside._ It was true, but it would not stick in her mind. Perhaps it was better that way. She had to start her preparations now: practical, physical and mental.

'Please could I have some money tomorrow?’ she asked Siri softly. ‘If I’m going back to living rough, I need a new pair of boots.’

Siri scowled. ‘Dumbledore’s been building you up to this from the beginning. This year was just refreshing your old skills.’

Rema sighed, and swirled her Firewhiskey, languidly watching the ice. 'It’s like this for everyone. Tonks’s heritage, Moody’s trauma, Snape’s…feelings for Rowan. You don’t just offer your skills to the Order, you offer your soul.’

‘“Offer”,’ Siri repeated, in a tone that conveyed everything she thought of the concept. ‘My soul hasn't been mine to offer for fourteen years. I’m as decrepit inside as this rotten old house.’ She grabbed her wand and cast a jinx at a large spider crawling up the wall; it stumbled and slipped to the floor.

Rema realised with a jolt that Siri was drunk, and had been for some time. These later stages brought out something raw and a little frightening in her. Her face got waxy, moon-like, like layers of masks and make-up had worn away, and there was a faint crack in her voice, like every word was spoken in defence against something only she could see. Her eyes were unfocused and watery.

‘Come with me,’ Rema told her.

‘Where?’

‘To the packs, as Snuffles. You wouldn't stand out, plenty of werewolves have dogs. It’ll be pretty rough, but nothing we haven't seen before.’

Siri shook her head and leaned away to glare at the ceiling. ‘The Ministry would find me.’

‘I have heard them with my own ears saying that they have no motive to look into werewolf packs. They haven't for years. You also have two Aurors deliberately trying to misdirect the manhunt for you. You’d be safe. Perhaps even safer than here. We don't know when this place will fall.'

Siri straightened up at that. She watched Rema, her hands dangling in her lap like a child’s. Rema drained her glass. ‘Also, if I'm being completely honest, if I end up living with Greyback and his accomplices then I will need all the help I can get to keep myself from…' She grimaced to smother harder words. '...paths I don't want to go down.’

'But what about Harry? How would we stay in touch with him?'

‘I don't know. But we could figure something out. A lot of pack werewolves come back to wizarding society once a month for their social security.'

Siri's mouth tightened, and she took a glance around the kitchen. She had probably lost the habit of thinking about the outdoors.

'You don't have to decide -' Rema began.

'Let's do it.’ Siri turned her head and cracked a smile - a real one, not a product of Firewhiskey. ‘The Marauders ride again.’

And just as she had in the old times, Rema decided she could worry about the dangers later. 'Prongs would be so proud.'

Siri nodded emphatically, her eyes shining. After a pause, she said, ‘I love you, Moony.'

Rema returned her smile. ‘I love you too, Padfoot.’

The sky was only just fading to dusk, and they lit a sole candle in the centre of the table and poured another couple of glasses of Firewhiskey. It felt as if they had all the time in the world to enjoy their friendship.

#

The next day Rema received a letter from Dumbledore confirming the objective of the mission and inviting her to take her time over her decision to go. She wrote back insisting she would not change her mind and would leave as soon as he wanted her to, but he said that he had other work he wanted to finish before they began.

_And I am sure you are already doing this, Rema, but if you have any outstanding affairs, it may be wise to get them in order._

Siri had settled Rema’s debts. Her possessions would fit into her Gringotts vault with room to spare. The only family she had, her father, was better off without her introducing more anxiety to his life, and most of her friends were in the Order and would know to find her through Dumbledore. The only thing left to do was wait, and get some more everyday Order work done in the meantime.

In June the society column of the Daily Prophet advertised that the Nott family were hosting a lavish party on Saturday 14th, to celebrate Mr Nott’s mother’s hundredth birthday. To the Order, it was a golden opportunity to observe who was moving in the Notts’ circles, and Rema and Tonks were assigned to stake the place out overnight. However, not long after they got into position on a grassy ledge overlooking the Nott family’s driveway, it began to pour with rain. The party guests were rushed in under protective spells, but most still instinctively hunched their shoulders and sheltered their faces, rendering them unrecognisable from a distance. Rema and Tonks, meanwhile, could not cast a similar spell without giving away their position, so they had no choice but to watch themselves get soaked, and the opportunity lose its sheen.

Rema could not bring herself to talk to Tonks about her mission, and he was uncharacteristically reticent as well, throwing out casual questions like he might have to anyone else.

‘You heard from Harry lately?’

‘Yes, not long ago. But it was a bit of a difficult conversation.’ She told him about what Harry had seen in the Pensieve; Siri and Jane’s cruelty, Snape’s humiliation, Rowan’s dignity in the face of it all.

‘Harry reminds me of Jane all the time, but there are things he knows about life that Jane had barely encountered at his age. She was a good person, of course she was, but she led a charmed life, and between her money, her parents and her brilliance she was protected from almost everything that could have hurt her. And from time to time she forgot that other people didn't have these things to turn to.’

‘What about Siri?’

‘She was a lot like Jane. Just as brilliant, just as reckless, and on top of that she was beautiful.’ Rema thought of Siri’s stricken eyes in the kitchen when they’d discussed her mission. ‘I do regret those days, and I wish Harry hadn’t seen them, but they seem so innocent now. Life wasn’t so kind to Siri and Jane in the end.’

Tonks hummed in agreement. Ahead of them the windows of the grand house were bright against the dusk. Raindrops pelted the ground, scattering the windows’ reflections like jewels under candlelight.

‘She’s still beautiful, isn't she?’ he said. ‘Even after Azkaban.’

The remark struck Rema like a snake bite. _Well done, Lupin_ , she thought. _You practically asked for it this time_.

‘Yes. Men never look at anyone else when she's not around,' she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Tonks’s head whipped around. The hurt in his face was so raw it made her heart jump.

‘You’d know perfectly well who I’ve fallen for, if you weren't too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice.’

It was sunrise after full moon. It was chocolate on Christmas morning. It was the first time her friends transformed into animals. The sublime. Love.

Then, just as quickly as it came, the sublime vanished. She looked down at her hands. 'I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You don’t? Really?’ he said, his tone wavering between anger, confusion and disappointment. ‘All this time we’ve spent together, all the…’ He made wild circular gestures with his hands. ‘All the things we’ve survived, all the things we believe in, all the…conversations we’ve had. Then I happen to say Siri is beautiful and you think I've fallen for her?’

He knew, she realised, how she felt about him. She was grateful it was dark, as it brought tears to her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I guess I’m not used to being liked.’

‘Don’t _apologise_ to me! Merlin, sometimes it’s like you want to apologise for being alive! Like you’ve done something wrong, like I’ve done something wrong. But I want to like you! I really, really like you.’

‘This is not just in my head, Tonks, I am a _werewolf_.’

‘Yes! I know!’ he snapped.

They stared at each other as if they’d just been replaced by different people. She looked away and took in a deep breath to collect herself. Tonks ran his hand through his hair, apparently doing the same.

'This is not how I pictured telling you,' he said.

‘How was it?’ she asked, relieved to have some balance restored between them.

‘After a meeting. I’d ask Siri to make herself scarce and we’d have a beer in the drawing room.’

She remembered cans rolling across the floor the last time he’d tripped over the umbrella stand at Headquarters. ‘I thought you’d brought those for Bill and Fleur.’

‘Nah. They don’t even like beer,’ he said, sounding more amused than annoyed by her obliviousness this time. ‘We’d talk for a couple of hours, and then just before I went home I’d say, d’you like Indian food, d’you want to go for dinner sometime?’

It felt like the pretend games she’d played as a child (she’d been obsessed with these, for obvious reasons). You be boyfriend, I’ll be girlfriend.

‘I usually feel more relaxed when I’ve had a drink. I might have said yes.’

Suddenly they heard the crunching sound of feet touching gravel. A tall figure in a long evening cloak had emerged from the Notts’ doorway. Tonks rolled over and grabbed his Omnioculars.

‘Shit, I know him! He’s one of Bill’s colleagues.’

She pulled out her notebook, casting a quick spell to protect it from rain. ‘Describe him. We’ll pass it on to Bill.’

‘About six foot, black hair, thick beard. Little bit paunchy round the waist. I’d put his age at late thirties, though it’s hard to tell. He’s wearing glasses with no rims, and he’s smoking a menthol cigarette.’

‘The Notts must not like it in the house.’

‘Well, it’s a vice, you know,’ he said. She laughed, for the first time all evening.

By the time the party wound to a close in the early hours of the morning they had pages of observations, but Rema was reaching the stage of tiredness where she could barely summon the energy to speak. The rain had not stopped, and she was so wet through she thought she could take root in the grass.

‘Come on,’ Tonks said, giving her shoulder a gentle push. ‘Let’s call it a night.’ He held out an arm to help her get to her feet.

‘Good mission,’ she said. ‘See you at Headquarters.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, in the middle of a yawn. ‘Just - before I forget -’

‘Hmm?’

‘D’you like Indian food?’

She turned to look at him. His hair was plastered to his head and his eyes were half-closed, but his smile was so bright she couldn't bring herself to lie to him. She would leave again soon, and he would find someone else, so what did one dinner matter?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.'

‘Would you like to go for a curry sometime? Next Saturday maybe?’

‘I am available next Saturday.’

‘Cool,’ he said. He yawned again. ‘Awesome. Fantastic. Brilliant.’

‘I think you need to go to bed - Tonks.’ She was a breath away from saying “love”.

‘Yeah,’ he said. He picked up his bag and made a half-turn towards the street. ‘I’ll get the Knight Bus down the road. See you soon, Rema.’

‘See you soon.’

She thought he wouldn't notice if she took a moment to watch him make his way down the slope, but when he got to the bottom he turned on his heel, ran back up in three long strides, took up her hand, and kissed it. The comedy of it made her giggle aloud.

‘I really am going now,’ he said, giving her hand a brief squeeze before letting go. She watched him again as he walked away, and even though she was too tired to think straight, still she sensed that a barrier was gone, and there would be no going back to their old friendship.

She saw him again three days later, when he came over with Kingsley and Mad-Eye to discuss the latest findings with her and Siri over a Victoria sponge. It was a bright afternoon, the kind that you waited all year for; even Moody was relaxed, or the closest he ever got to it. Tonks made relentless faces at her across the table, and it was her pleasure to let him. All five of them were stunned when the Floo flared up and Snape’s voice called out.

‘Black, are you here?’

‘As per, Snivelly,’ Siri grumbled. ‘Why?’

‘…Potter has had a vision of you being tortured in the Department of Mysteries.’ She paused. ‘I had to check.’

Siri shuddered. ‘Bastards. Tell him I’m safe, will you?’

‘Of course.’ Without awaiting a thanks or goodbye, Snape vanished.

‘He’s still having the Occlumency lessons?’ Mad-Eye asked.

‘I sincerely hope he is,’ Rema said.

It was impossible for anyone in the room not to tense up at the mere mention of torture. When Snape’s Patronus swirled into the middle of the room a short while later, they were each just as poised as if they’d been expecting it.

‘I haven't found Potter and his friends. I believe they will have gone to the Department of Mysteries with the aim of rescuing Black. The Death Eaters will be waiting for them there. Anyone who can, please go immediately.’

 


	5. Denial

The aftermath of the battle was chaos. The heated darkness of the Ministry was replaced, in a blink, with the painfully bright lights of the Hogwarts hospital wing. Somehow they had all been Apparated there. The kids had all taken wounds, and Rema, Kingsley and Mad-Eye had to mobilise to guide them to beds. Rema took Hermione, whose eyes were rolling with the effort to stay conscious.

'Siri,' she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. 'We have to go back for Siri.'

'You're hurt, Hermione, you have to rest,' Rema told her gently.

Hermione's body sagged before her head touched the pillow. Rema sat next to her and took up her wrist to monitor her vital signs, and check it was sleep she was falling into and not unconsciousness induced by head injury.

'I can only see one patient at a time!' Madam Pomfrey called to the room in a harried voice. Rema closed her eyes and did a quick check for injuries of her own; all she noticed was some light strain in her chest and shoulders. She wondered where that had come from and then remembered that not a few minutes before she'd thrown her entire body weight into stopping Harry from crossing the veil after Siri.

Already she'd forgotten. It was as if Siri was still back at Headquarters, tending to Buckbeak or going over plans or waiting for them all. Rema felt she was waiting for the moment to say 'Oh, no, but this is a dream' and wake up. Unfortunately, she knew it had been like this all the other times, as well.

Keeping up a leadership role, she did a quick headcount, and found two lacking.

'Where's Harry?' she asked Kingsley, who was upright in a chair cradling his swollen wrist.

'With Dumbledore,' he said softly.

Rema exhaled in relief. Harry was just like Jane in this, too; he felt grief as a instant and critical wound, like a punctured artery. He would want to be alone, but probably shouldn't be.

'And Tonks,' she said, 'What happened to him?'

'St Mungo's. He had some nasty fractures from the fall as well as the spell damage. Mad-Eye was concerned he might have internal injuries.'

'Does he?'

Kingsley's normally stoic eyes softened. Rema realised Tonks might had told him about their plans to go out.

'I don't know. If he does, at least he's in the right place.'

Once the critically injured patients were stabilised, Madam Pomfrey examined everyone else in turn. Despite how rushed this was, Rema felt her encroaching agonies slow down a little. She had been a little girl when she first met the Hogwarts nurse, and from that first night had always felt safe under her watch.

'Is it true?' she asked Rema. 'Is Siri Black dead?'

Rema nodded. 'It was a duel.'

Madam Pomfrey was silent for a long time. 'I am so sorry, Rema. I can hardly imagine how you must be feeling.'

There it was, the first 'I'm so sorry'. Quicker than the words 'Avada Kedavra' she had become one of the bereaved. This role was another thing she had temporarily forgotten, though the words came back easily.

'Thank you. I'll manage.'

'You can come and visit here any time. You don't have to have another complaint. Grief is a war wound, too.'

'Of course. Thank you very much.'

Outside, the sun had fully risen, and was casting dazzling beams through the castle windows. Kingsley, Rema and Mad-Eye stayed in their chairs, none of them quite prepared to make the move back to Headquarters. They were all tired, of course, but Rema suspected both of the men, like her, also had some intuition that one more thing was coming. And one more thing did, when Snape came during breakfast to explain the full truth of what had unfolded that night.

'Wait,' Mad-Eye said, during the story. 'Bellatrix Lestrange is the next in line to inherit?'

'So Kreacher said,' Snape said. 'And few know the Black family as well as he does.'

Mad-Eye's magical eye roved across their little group, and he slammed down his mug of tea so hard it sloshed on to the table. 'Right. Shacklebolt, go home and rest your arm. Lupin, you alright?'

Rema nodded.

'We need to clear out of Headquarters right now,' Mad-Eye said. 'Snape, go and find anyone you can with a free pair of hands.'

When they got to Grimmauld Place, Rema called out to Mad-Eye that she was going to the top floor and working downwards. It was not worth touching Regulus's room - they had examined it for curses, but once it was proved clear Siri had insisted no one so much as look at it, and the door had been closed. Instead, Rema went into Siri's room.

Rema and Siri had hung out in almost every room of the house but their bedrooms. Rema had not made anything of this, thinking Siri's room was most likely a twin of her own, a guest room with decoration that prioritised good outward impressions over expression of inner life. But when Rema put her head around the door, she saw a treasure trove. There were more Gryffindor banners, flags and scarves covering the walls than in the common room at Hogwarts, including one scarf in psychedelic red and yellow swirls, which Rema remembered tying around her head back when her hair was down to her waist. Also on the walls were posters of motorbikes, rock bands and beefcakes with hairy chests. It was surprising to think Mr and Mrs Black had allowed these to remain on their walls for all this time. Rema leaned in to peel off one poster, but found she could not even get a flicker of it under her nail. They were fixed with a Permanent Sticking Charm. Of course.

Smiling despite herself, she took a step forward and heard something crumple under her feet. When she looked down, she gasped aloud and dropped to her knees. Beside the bed was a pile of letters, pictures, cards, postcards, possibly more, and Rema recognised at a glance her own, Jane, Rowan and Petra's handwriting all across them.

A twelve-year-old Petra, still writing in print, with wide spaces between each letter.

_I have a question about the history of magic. Has anything interesting ever happened and if so why can't we learn about it?_

A twenty-year-old Jane, writing in block capitals.

_I HAVE HAD HEARTBURN FOR SIX SOLID MONTHS. PRAY FOR ME._

Herself, aged sixteen, handwriting much the same as it would be in twenty years, but with her first taste of adult angst.

_I hope you don't mind me talking so much about my dad. You're the only one who understands. It's not just about what he said to Greyback, it's about a lot of other things that he has done and is still doing wrong._

Siri had had a huge heart. The anger and depression inside her now was so powerful because it had that heart to feed on. A few short years at Hogwarts, and two wars…how could that be the limit of her life? Didn't the world know what it was losing?

Rema had taken in Rowan and Jane's deaths very quickly, because everything changed. Wizards and witches poured into the streets, dancing a strange dance between grief and elation, losing control of their magic and their cover. It had been a historic few days. Not a second on the clock had been reserved to mourn Siri.

Rema put her hands over her eyes. Her heart was pounding. She had a vision of herself falling into this pile of letters and letting herself be consumed into words.

'Lupin!' Moody called from downstairs. 'You still there?'

She sniffed. 'Sorry, Mad-Eye, I'm getting there!'

'Come down.'

Downstairs, Molly and Dedalus had arrived to help them out, and four fresh mugs of tea were waiting on the kitchen table.

'We don't have time for this,' Mad-Eye grumbled.

'Oh, honestly!' Molly said. 'We'll be here for at least half an hour. And packing is thirsty work.'

Order members had to fill in reports after each activity, and these had built into an enormous quantity in the year since they'd begun. When Molly lifted a cardboard box of them out of a cupboard in the drawing room, the bottom collapsed instantly, spilling them across the floor. The others were in equally flimsy folders. Rema joined her to sort them out, and updated her on Ron's condition.

'The welts did look very painful, but I think that will ease fairly quickly. I don't think these things usually scar.'

Molly nodded, tapping her wand on a pile of papers to tidy them. 'I had an owl from Hogwarts. And Harry…I do hope they can help Harry.'

'We'll look out for him, too,' Rema said. Her eyes scanned the mission notes as she sifted through them. Amidst the serious observations were jokes, sarcastic remarks, messages of good luck and cheer to the reader. They already seemed like something from another generation.

'What I'm worried about right now -' Molly began.

'And Dumbledore will help him. He understands a lot about loss, and he has a way of -'

'Is you.'

For a moment Rema could not think of one word to say. She gave Molly an awkward grimace and picked up her tea, taking a large gulp.

'I'll manage. I don't think Siri would want me to mope too much.'

Molly made a hum of agreement. 'But do you have anywhere to sleep tonight?'

A cold spasm of horror went through Rema, and her hands let go over her tea, spilling it over several of the reports. The sharp clink of porcelain against wood seemed to echo for a solid minute. 'I don't know. Oh my God, I'm useless.'

It wasn't often that she said thoughts like that aloud, but it was too late to pretend she hadn't meant it. _Do you want to end up in Azkaban for being an itinerant werewolf?_ It looks like you do! her mind yelled at her.

'Oh, dear,' Molly said, and cleaned up the tea with a flick of her wand. She took two quick steps around the table and enveloped Rema in her arms, though she needed to stand on tiptoes to do so. 'Charlie's room is free. You're welcome to it for as long as you need, he's not coming home for a long while yet.' Her voice was warm and so kind it reminded Rema vividly of her own mother, even though Molly was only a decade or so older than she was. She knew she ought to pull away, but she didn't. She realised in that moment something that had probably been in her subconscious for months; she'd thought Molly didn't really like her. She always thought that about people.

'Thank you,' she said. 'That's very kind of you.'

'You could use our garage for your…full moons,' Molly said. 'Merlin knows I've waited years for an excuse to get Arthur to clear it out. Did I ever tell you about his car?'

Rema pulled away, wiping her eyes. 'No, I didn't know about that.' She returned to the papers, and Molly followed suit.

'It is the most ridiculous story. It was called a Ford Anglia, he found it for sale on a street in Wigan…'

Life at the Burrow was like heaven, in the sense that it was wonderful, but also that she was dead. Each day began at five, with the sun beaming obnoxiously through Charlie's thin curtains, but Rema would not get out of bed until nine, when the sounds of Molly and Arthur starting their day had settled. She took a hot bath, put on her winter jumpers, and ate porridge for breakfast; this felt right somehow, even though it made her sweat. She helped Molly with feeding the chickens, digging up the potatoes, and making repairs to clothes, and she read, and read, and read some more, into the early hours of every night. She did not cry, even once.

Days passed, and Rema didn't hear anything from the other Order members, which was so unusual she wondered if they had decided to give her some compassionate leave. If so, she wished they had told her. When her mother died in 1980, she had taken a week off from Order work and gone home to organise the funeral on her father's behalf. She had not cherished this by any means; in fact it had been awful. But it had been a way to say goodbye and let the grief peak. With no body, no funeral and no mourning, her grief for Siri was as boundless and inescapable as the ocean.

On the evening of her seventh day at the Burrow, Rema picked up a heavenly smell of meat and followed it into the kitchen. A lidded dish glowed in the oven; a line of deep brown gravy slipped down the side. Molly was setting an extra place at the table.

'Is Bill coming?' Rema asked.

'No, he never comes without _her_ any more,' Molly said. 'Tonks is home from hospital, but he's still off sick, poor dear. I invited him round for some hotpot.'

Rema's whole body tensed. In dramatic contrast to herself, Tonks was always ready to talk, even, or perhaps especially, about the hardest things. She had not been able to face seeing him while he was in hospital, and now it felt like a reckoning was coming for her. She went back to the living room and picked up another book, telling herself, pointlessly, that she was not hiding.

Tonks arrived markedly early. From the living room his words were muffled but his tone was subdued and apologetic; she guessed he might have had nothing to do all day but wait for this dinner. When she could hang back no longer, she walked through to see him. He smiled, and hugged her, and made some small talk as usual, but he looked as haggard as if he'd been through three werewolf transformations. There was thick stubble on his chin, and his eyes were bloodshot and small in his face. Every few minutes he let out a sigh, though he didn't seem to notice he was doing it.

'This is just the ticket,' he said with a wan smile when they sat down to dinner. Molly and Arthur were so caught up in worry for him that it took them both a second to respond.

'Yes! Dreadful, that hospital food,' Arthur said. 'More than once I had no idea what I was eating.'

Tonks chuckled. 'Even after you taste it, eh?'

This flash of humour disappeared as quickly as it had come. For the rest of the meal the only sounds in the room were of their knives and forks scraping against their plates, and the evening breeze in the meadow outside.

'I think I'm going to declare myself better tomorrow,' Tonks said.

'Are you sure?' Molly asked.

'Yeah.' He drew his knife and fork together with deliberate slowness, as if they represented what he meant. 'I'm supposed to be one of the Order's best fighters. I need to get my act together.'

'Getting injured doesn't make you a bad fighter,' Rema said.

'Letting somebody die does,' Tonks said.

A wave of sadness washed over them all. Everyone stopped eating and fell silent. It seemed no one knew what could be said to such a thing, but it was worse to keep silent. Arthur was the first to break the silence.

'You can't blame yourself, Tonks,' he said. 'You couldn't have carried that battle on your own no matter how well you fought. There ought to have been more of us at Headquarters when the news came through. The children ought not to have gone to the Department of Mysteries alone.'

'There is much to regret,' Rema agreed. 'And you don't have to bear it alone.'

Tonks nodded dutifully, but she could hear in his silence that he didn't believe it, and when he spoke again the same feelings rushed out.

'Mad-Eye always told me I needed to prepare myself for my first disaster. And I tried - at least I thought I tried - but I never expected I'd be so helpless. I remember every second of falling from that platform, like it was slow motion. I tried to summon a spell to slow myself down but nothing came, and I couldn't move my arms or legs. I just…fell.'

'I had a similar feeling when the snake came for me,' Arthur said. He hung his head a little, suddenly looking much older than he was. 'There comes a moment when you think "I can't fight back any more".'

'And Bellatrix Lestrange got to move on to another victim.' Tonks sighed again, and drank some of the cordial they were drinking with dinner. There were tears in his eyes, and he wiped them with the heel of his hand. 'Merlin, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…'

'No, no,' Molly said, getting up to put her hands on his shoulders. 'This is good. It's good to talk.'

She got him, and everyone else at the table, some tea, some cherry crumble and some leftover chocolate, and this was enough to keep Tonks busy while he talked through everything he was feeling.

'I was worried about being a Black long before I became an Auror,' he said. 'It's never been enough for me to just know about it and try to do better. I want to fight back. I feel like my whole life led up to that battle, and I can't believe I lost it.'

Rema was reminded, yet again, of how young he was. He was still his boyhood self; there had been so little for him to discover and understand life beyond what he'd dreamed it would be. Seeing him like this made her feel very close to him, and that only made her heart sink. He deserved a life as apart from hers as possible.

The evening began to grow late, and after Rema and Tonks had washed up, Molly and Arthur retired to the living room, as they did every evening, to listen to the wireless or talk. Rema might have joined them, but they were unusually quick, and closed the door behind them when they left.

'I suppose they want some time alone,' she mentioned to Tonks. 'The kids are coming home tomorrow.'

Tonks was slumped in his chair, gazing into the middle distance. It looked like the effort of gathering his things to go home was beyond him for now. Rema drew her cardigan around herself and sat opposite him.

'Has it helped you, to talk about it?' she asked him.

He was still breathing in that shaky way that comes after breaking down crying, but he smiled. 'A bit. Especially over crumble.'

'We'll do it again sometime,' she said. 'Bottling up just makes it worse. I know, I've had survivor's guilt for fifteen years now.'

Saying those words aloud again, the two simple words that described the most awful period of her life, was a self-inflicted punch to her head. All at once she wanted desperately to be alone, to cover herself with Charlie's Chudley Cannons duvet and think about nothing more than getting through the night.

Tonks drew back his chair. There was a sudden alertness in his eyes.

'You're on sick leave too, aren't you?' he said.

'I think I have been put on it,' she said.

'How are you feeling?' he asked, softly.

She couldn't reply. This was Tonks she was talking to, handsome and lovely Tonks who was already suffering enough, and even if she'd wanted to say something, she couldn't think what. Telling the truth would make him worry, and lying would make him worry even more.

'Survivor's guilt again?' he prompted.

She nodded. After a long pause, what she heard herself say was, 'I thought Siri would stay this time.'

She looked up at him for his reaction. His face was empathetic but calm, so she carried on. 'I was like you. I thought I could anticipate everything. I never forgot that Grimmauld Place might not always be safe; I had ideas about where Siri and I could hide, how she could stay active in the war and close to Harry even if the net closed in on her. Between Dumbledore, and you and Kingsley, and me, I thought we would save her.'

Her mouth was dry. She began to wish she had some Firewhiskey, or the beers Tonks had once promised to buy them.

'I can hardly describe how much I loved my friends, Tonks. I never thought I'd meet anyone who understood me, or loved me, like they did. Losing them all - I mean, Jane, Rowan, and Petra, and Siri, that first time, was hell on Earth. The only thing way I survived it was by telling myself that it couldn't happen again.' She clasped her hands together. They were shaking. The whole room was wobbling before her eyes. 'But now it has. I have no home, no family, no money, no health, and I'm -' Her throat caught on the word, and it came out in a sob. 'Alone.'

'You don't have to be alone,' he said. He got up and walked around the table to her, holding out his arms bleakly. And she was so tired, of grieving, of thinking, and of being so lonely, that she fell into them.

She felt as if she could disappear again, into the folds of his robes, but it was a good feeling. With each breath out she let herself sink a little deeper, and with each breath in she waited for a resistance from him that never came. This was what she'd been looking for with her jumpers and porridge, she realised: warmth, human warmth. His own hands rested lightly against her shoulders, but he pressed his face to her neck, so close she could feel his lips against her skin. It sent a wave through her that was equal parts pain and pleasure.

'I want -' She froze, not realising she had spoken her thoughts aloud, but before another second passed Tonks said,

'Me, too.'

They lifted their heads, and their lips met in a kiss. It was so easy it didn't feel at all like the first time, and they gave it no pause of recognition. They kissed again, and again, only stopping to breathe. His kisses weren't as soft as she'd imagined they would be; they were firm, desperate almost, like he was trying to immerse himself in every one, in case it was the last. At once they both seemed to realise that this would not be enough. He pulled away, an urgent question in his eyes. She gave a small nod.

'Not here,' he said, glancing uneasily around the room. He offered her his hand. 'Let's Apparate to my place.'

She took it, and half a second later they were in darkness. Tonks lit a long candle that was waiting by the door.

Most of the room was taken up by a double-bed with a rumpled duvet. The walls were the yellowish colour favoured by cheap landlords, and there was a crack down one wall. Books and clothes were scattered across the floor, which had a swirling, flowery carpet she doubted he'd chosen himself. To Rema there was something sweetly reassuring about the place, though perhaps this was also because Tonks still had an arm around her.

He pulled off his T-shirt and threw it aside, then went to unzip his jeans. She undid the buttons at the back of her robes and let them fall to the floor, then loosened her hair so it tumbled down to her breasts. Doing this made her feel almost pretty, until she remembered -

'My legs…'

Tonks gave her a tender smile, huffing a little, out of breath. 'I dunno if I can do this without touching them,' he said. Hearing the truth of what they were about to do spoken aloud made her blush like a fever. His hair, likewise, went a soft rose-red at the roots. A moment of silent awe passed between them.

She stepped back and sat down on the bed, and he straddled her, the cheap bed creaking at the weight of his knees. The soft skin of his inner thigh pressed against the jagged ridge of her bite scar, but he didn't even blink. His eyes were still shiny and sore-looking from how much he'd cried, and in the candlelight they had the ancient, heart-stopping beauty of the stars. She kissed him once more, circling her arms around his waist. All her thoughts - Siri, the war, the Order, the storm of pain and misery inside her - faded into the most benevolent quiet.

For the first time since Siri's death Rema slept through the night. She woke to the sound of Tonks shuffling around in bed, getting comfortable to read a novel.

'...Hello,' she said, awkwardly.

'…Wotcher,' he said, with the same tone. 'Sleep well?'

'Mm.' The sheets were tangled between her legs. It took a moment for her to realise how exposed she was. She scrambled up to cover herself. He reached up and placed a hand on her arm, and she turned her head to look at him.

'I...um…' For one of the first times she'd ever seen, he struggled for words. 'You don't need to worry about that in front of me.'

She smoothed the sheets over herself anyway. Her scars were hideous enough in candlelight, let alone in the cold light of day.

'Do you want some breakfast?' he asked.

Tonks lived above a Portuguese café in North London. He'd befriended the family who ran it, and popped downstairs (in the Muggle sense of the word) in a hoodie and pyjama bottoms to fetch some breakfast items. She, wearing her robes from the night before, took a moment to look around his flat. There were even more books, scattered on every surface like he was reading about eight at once, which he probably was. A signed poster of The Hobgoblins' frontman stood like an ancestral portrait above a dusty, disused television. The sofa and chair were so ill-suited to the small living-dining room that they were endearing; bright yellow, squat and overstuffed as caterpillars. Immediately she imagined spending days with him reading on this sofa.

 _He regrets everything, and so should you_ , she tried to tell herself, but promptly forgot it.

Tonks rushed in with two fresh coffees, two hot rolls, and two natas. His face was glowing with excitement.

'I had an idea!' he announced. 'If the kids are coming back from school today, Harry's going to have to go back to his wretched aunt and uncle, isn't he? And you know I'm bursting to meet them…'

Reason #200 Rema had fallen for Tonks: his bright pink hair was downright offensive to Vernon and Petunia. The look on their faces, and on Harry's, when the Order turned up to see him off made was a memory she would cherish forever. She decided she had better follow the Weasleys home, not least to change her clothes, but Tonks had decided not to go back to work after all and had suggested a walk in the meadows near his house.

'Don't be long,' he said, giving her an intense look that made her giddy. She beamed at him.

On the way back Molly, Hermione, Ron and Ginny talked over each other in louder and louder voices about the latest news from Hogwarts, and Arthur took the opportunity to draw Rema aside for a moment.

'I didn't want to mention this in front of everyone,' he said, 'but last night…'

She pressed a hand to her forehead and cringed. 'I'm sorry, I should have left a note or something. It - it was all a bit -'

Arthur held up a hand. 'Quite alright. None of my business. The only thing is, there was a delivery for you from Hogwarts. Your Wolfsbane Potion.'

The full moon was four days away. With one dose missed, the others would be useless. She'd done it again. Her bones, as if on cue, suddenly felt too heavy to support, and her stomach churned. The world shrank and darkened at the edge of her vision. Arthur was still talking, saying that they sent Errol with the message but he probably got lost, and Tonks didn't have a fireplace to Floo, and they sent a Patronus, and so on, but she struggled to respond to him through the noise of her mind shrieking insults at her. _Stupid, stupid, stupid beast!_

This must have shown in her face, because even though she didn't say a word Arthur leaned in closer and said gently, 'Don't be upset. It's just an unfortunate accident. Snape should never have sent it so late, not if you needed to take it before bed.' His slender, fidgety hands moved up and over each other in a stacking motion. 'You're still welcome to use the garage. I thought perhaps we could brick up the doorway and you could Apparate inside. But would you be well enough in the morning to Apparate out?'

She was touched by the fact that his response to the prospect of having a true werewolf in his garage was to calmly work out the logistics. But she shook her head.

_Stupid, evil beast! You want this, don't you? You want to be a monster. You are a monster._

'It's alright. I'll manage. It's time I moved on, anyway.'

Arthur's jaw dropped. 'Are you sure? Is there anywhere else that's safe for you? There isn't long to go.'

She swallowed. 'I know of a place.'

_A place where monsters like you belong._

The moment she got home she set about writing to Tonks, entrusting the message to the much smarter Pigwidgeon, and told him she would not be coming for a walk with him. She had, she said, duties to focus on.

She spent as much time away from the Burrow as she could over the next few days, expecting that Tonks would come looking for her, which he did. Ron, Hermione and Ginny complained that he wasn't fun any more, which invited the older Weasleys to look across at Rema with consternation mingled with disapproval.

At lunchtime on the day before the full moon, Rema was out in the garden. The flowerbeds needed weeding, and she wanted to help Molly and Arthur out one last time before she left. She was startled when a shadow fell over her, and she whipped around to face Tonks. He did not wave, just frowned. His hair was light brown, exactly the same colour as her own was, or had been once.

'What the hell is going on?' he asked.

'I have to leave tonight,' she said. 'I'm going to have a full transformation.'

'Yes, I know that. Arthur and Molly said they offered to let you stay here, but you refused. I don't know why the hell you're doing that either, but that's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking why you cancelled on me then blanked me for three solid days.'

She stood up, and looked toward the house to check if any of the children were in earshot. They weren't, and so she folded her arms and frowned back at him.

'That night we had together was a mistake.'

'Why?'

'It was grief clouding our judgements. If we'd been in our right minds we would have thought better of it.'

His face broke into a sarcastic smile. 'Oh. Oh, you almost had me there. I'd believe you if it had just been a quick shag. But we both know it wasn't, was it?'

She remembered the tenderness of his fingers across her scars, the sound of his whispers in her ear. Her heart started to throb in her throat just at the thought.

'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'If you're looking for a girlfriend, you'd be happier with someone your own age. You do realise I am thirteen years older than you?'

'I love that about you,' he said. 'I love how brilliant a witch you are. I love how you duel, how you plan. I love the way you get people to listen to you, even - actually, because you don't seem to realise you're doing it. You wouldn't be like that if you hadn't lived your life. And I want you, not someone my age.'

'I also look old. My hair is mostly grey.'

'What does your hair colour matter? You're beautiful,' he said.

'Don't flatter me,' she snapped, glad to have a more straightforward reason to be annoyed.

'But you are!'

She cast her head aside and closed her eyes as he said something cheesy about the lines around her smile, the spark in her eyes. It was smart of him to choose to compliment things she couldn't enhance with make-up, but they would still deteriorate, if they hadn't already.

'I also have no money,' she said. 'None. Before I moved into Grimmauld Place I was living in a cottage with half a roof. I still have trousers I bought with my Hogwarts hardship fund.'

He paused, then shrugged. 'You've been poor since I've known you, and it hasn't put me off you.'

'It's different, Tonks. I've been living off other people since you've known me. I'm a different person when I'm not nourished. The only reason I am not a beggar, or a bag lady, or whatever word you want to use, is because my affliction means I _can't_ be on the streets. Oh yes!' She pronounced with drama. 'Last but not least! I am a werewolf.'

He opened his mouth to scoff, but before he could do so she closed her eyes and summoned the shadow that was just beneath her skin this close to the full moon. Her tendons tightened like rope and her skin bristled. She was only semi-conscious of the whole change, but she knew the effect. He gaped at her, totally stupefied.

'You don't seem to be taking in what the word means, so I thought I'd show you,' she said. 'I am one missed potion away from an evil, soulless creature that will tear apart and eat any human in its path. That monster is me and I am it, and I will be this way until I die. It is all I can do to keep people I love away from me.'

Despite everything, Tonks's expression softened. 'Do you love me?' he asked.

She wanted to say 'no', but the word formed a physical lump in her throat, and she had to cough to prevent herself from bursting into tears.

'Don't ask yourself that question any more,' she told him.

Something began to change in his face. Dark smudges emerged like bruises under his eyes. His cheeks sagged with tiredness. The skin on his nose and chin grew dry and blotchy, and he lost several inches of height. The real Nymphidius Tonks, the man under the elastic grins and sparkling eyes, was appearing before her, and she had never loved him so much.

'I know who you are,' he said, his tone steady. 'You're not as mysterious as you think. You're kind, and brave, and smart, and I am hopelessly in love with you.'

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. This time, it was as soft as she'd dreamed it would be.

'I'll wait for you,' he said.

 _You don't deserve him_ , Rema told herself. _You deserve nothing but death._

That afternoon she packed her things into her hold-all and wrote a quick note to Dumbledore telling him how she could be reached. She Apparated to a small alley in a tiny village a few miles from Norfolk. Every time she came here, she fancied she could feel the presence of the old fens in the air, with everything lurking in the water, and preserved in the peat. Wizards in the rest of the UK still didn't venture here that often, even though it was as easy for them as anywhere else. It was no wonder outsiders were drawn here.

She walked along a rough, stony road towards a squat pub with windows so dark it looked abandoned. When she opened the door, the late afternoon sun illuminated clouds of thick dust in the air.

A group of five or six men were huddled around pints of bitter in a corner by the bar. They were varied in age and appearance but they all had an air of wretchedness. One of them got up to greet her. His expression was friendly, but not happy; an ally meeting another across a battlefield.

'I thought you preferred transforming at home,' Lightning said.

'I don't have a home any more,' Rema said.


End file.
